Greater Grafton

On a month by month basis, there are at least 200 different house holds on average looking for a company to perform a loft conversion within the area of Leeds. Loft conversions are becoming an ever increasingly popular form of home improvement within Leeds because of the extension space it could provide your home, for what is a relatively small investment compared to other options such as buying a new home or investing into an actual home extension. Within these searches, there is no way to associate the loft conversion they are looking for specifically. There is no way to accurately suggest if they are looking for a hip to gable loft conversion, mansard loft conversion or dormer loft conversion. All we can tell is that these home owners are looking for a loft conversion within the area of Leeds, and they would like to convert their loft for additional room.

As someone who works in a Leeds Loft Conversion company, I have a lot of experience performing these loft conversions in multiple houses. One of the biggest homes that I have ever worked on was a two-storey home, but the length of the home was the distinctive feature. The home itself stretched what could only be described as half a street. It looked as if people took the two highest floors off the home and put it side by side to the home itself. It was a strange architectural decision, but I later realised that the home itself was used as a building to house multiple people. It was the servant home of a very affluent family 100 years ago, and the home itself was stretched to allow multiple families to live under the same roof, but with their own privacy.

The loft in question was above the home itself. The loft stretched the entire length of the building, and the loft conversion was a simple hip to gable loft conversion. The building itself had such a large, unused loft that by the time the construction of the hip to gable had been completed, it seemed as if we added an entire floor to the home rather than simply converting the loft. The loft conversion was a simple conversion, and instead of designing and constructing the rooms, we simply constructed the conversion itself by boarding the loft and insulating it. We also painted and decorated the entire space from top to bottom to be used however the homeowner saw fit, and we also added large Velux windows into the walls of the loft to allow a large amount of natural light. We also added a skylight on the top of the building itself, which is something that is rarely done in a loft conversion since most home owners have a decision they have already made for their rooms.

The opportunity to construct a large skylight within the roof of the building and into the loft is so rare that I was very excited to do so. Any opportunity you get to experiment with a loft conversion you would take. It was so fun to do, and I wish that more home owners take the opportunity to add a skylight within their loft.

Thank you for reading my blog post today, and make sure you check for more blog posts in the future and some in the past! Thank you for reading and if you have time take a look through the website please!

One of the easiest loft conversions that can be completed in the city of Leeds because of the irregular house shapes are dormer loft conversions. As they act as both a hip to gable loft conversion and an extension of space within the conversion itself, it both provides additional space within the home and allows the correction of the irregular loft and home spaces. This additional extension is useful for multiple needs, from the correction of the uneven walls that connect the loft to the additional rooms that they could provide the home owner. A dormer loft conversion can provide a home owner with two extra rooms within the extension itself depending on what you would like for your home. It also depends on the rooms that the home owner would like to include.

One of the homes my team had to provide a dormer conversion on was very uneven within the loft space. The actual loft itself was very bent in terms of the shape. The end wall met the middle of the floor when compared to the entrance, so we were looking at a very cramped loft without the dormer conversion. Since a dormer conversion is completed in an L-shape, we had to come up with a solution that was the same as a dormer but was cost effective, and not the same as a mansard conversion. A mansard conversion meant the creation of a much larger extension than a dormer, and the additional raw materials and labour hours that a mansard conversion would cost meant it was unfeasible for the home owner. So, we decided that we could save a lot of cost and labour hours by being creative with a dormer loft conversion and creating additional space there.

The project itself was not as difficult as it sounds, as an L-shaped dormer loft doesn’t need to be extending outward for the L to face the back of the home. The L itself can be wrapped around the back of the loft, which is what we decided to do. It allowed us to even out the walls, so they were now parallel to each other with the measurements matching perfectly, and it also allowed more windows within the loft itself. Once the loft was evened out and the walls had matched each other, we decided that the best way to ensure the home owner gets the most out of their loft is to match the rooms around the design, rather than the design around the rooms necessary.

The home owner wanted us to build a large home cinema for the loft instead of building a bedroom and bathroom combination. I decided that it would be easier for us to extend the loft in a way that evened out the walls, but unfortunately would mean that half of the room itself would have an outwards wall. This wasn’t an issue however, since we decided that the back section of the loft would hold the large screen projector and the screen itself. That would allow the cinema section to be completely evened out and looked professional. We covered the outward part of the wall with a small bar that carried drinks and a small fridge for all alcohol, which meant it looked like a nice place to hang out with friends and family.

 

I hope you enjoyed todays blog post, and tomorrow I want to talk more about loft conversions within the city of Leeds! If you haven’t already, make sure to read some of the other posts!

Leeds is a weird place to convert lofts for the home owners within the area. So many of the homes in Leeds are of a different size or design, meaning that unlike other places around England and the United Kingdom where the average home would be suitable for one specific loft conversion, we often must start wildly varying projects. A good example of this would be somewhere such as Manchester. Many of the homes in Manchester are built the same way and with the same design, meaning that the loft conversions can generally be the same. They would usually be hip to gable loft conversions with about 2 rooms worth of space available to the home owner. This isn’t always the case, but the general average means that around 60-70% of the homes would match these criteria.

In Leeds however, you often do not have the same design from home to home. They would either be two floored homes that are unique in design, or 3+ that has little to no loft conversation space and an extension would also need to be created. This is where the homeowners need and requirements can make a few projects somewhat difficult to complete. If the owners home doesn’t have enough space within the existing loft for one room, then you are looking at building an extension rather than a traditional loft conversion. This is further true depending on how many new rooms or how much additional space the home owner would like within the loft.

There was one home that was surprisingly weird to build a loft conversion for. The home itself was built at a slant on the side of a relatively steep hill. The width of the home itself was also strange, since the home itself wasn’t accurately parallel from wall to wall. The overall measurements of the building itself wasn’t consistent from side to side and the overall loft itself was lopsided. The homeowner themselves wanted a hip to gable loft conversion to fit a new bedroom and bathroom within the loft, but it was difficult to complete without having to extend any space within the loft. Usually this isn’t a problem when it comes to some hip to gable loft conversions, but because of the project the home owner wanted us to complete, it took a lot of back and forth and tweaking to ensure that the project had completed to the standard they wanted.

We had to reshuffle the room plans for the loft itself. Although the home owner wanted to place the rooms in a specific way, we had to reorganize so we didn’t compromise the integrity of the bedroom design. While the bathroom was originally closest to the loft entrance, we had to reorganize the loft to make sure the bathroom was on the side of the loft where the walls closed in together. Unfortunately, this hadn’t been the first home we had encountered this issue and it wouldn’t be the last due to the inconsistent nature of the home designs.

Thank you for reading today’s blog post, and I hope that you get to read some of the new posts that I will be making in the future. I also hope that you get a chance to look at some of the blog posts I have made in the past.

I remember the first loft conversion that I ever worked on as a foreman of the site. It was a Mansard Conversion within the Leeds area that was actually very large for its size, allowing for an additional 3 rooms within the extension of the conversion. The original loft space gave an additional 2 rooms for the home as well, meaning that the grand total of rooms that were created within the mansard loft conversion was 5. This included a bedroom, a bathroom, a large bedroom and two hobby rooms. The overall size and scale of the mansard loft conversion meant that for a first foreman job, a loft conversion doesn’t get much bigger in general. In fact, it is very rare for a loft conversion to grant so many additional rooms. With a mansard conversion, you would usually get 3 – 4 additional bedrooms, and it took a very large extension for the additional space to be granted.

While many dormer and mansard loft conversions usually start with the conversion and creation of the rooms within the original loft space, I found it best to create the additional space first. There are two schools of though on a loft conversion of this size, which is to prioritise the original space before working on the construction phase of the extension. The other school of thought is to convert and construct the loft and extension at the same time before preparing the creation of the rooms itself. I favour the second school of thought, as the construction phase of the loft conversion is the most difficult and time-consuming part of the project itself. It is also the most important part of the loft conversion, since the health and safety risks of any construction issues far outweighs the priority of converting the rooms within the loft itself.

After the construction phase had been completed, I made sure to create the rooms themselves. I felt that once we had a real feel for the space that had been created, the home owners would be able to get a grasp of the general sizes they would like each room. Since the hobby rooms did not need to be too large, it was possible to create a large second bedroom as opposed to two medium sized rooms. This made the home owners much happier then they were with the original project, since the large bedrooms were a necessity for them since it would be a guest room for visitors.

The hobby rooms within the loft were designed for two things: a games room and an artists room. The artists room was mainly designed for the home owner who is a painter. They wanted to use a room for inspiration in which they could paint without distraction. They could also use the room for many different pictures or landscapes, or even for the ability to use their imagination in a small room that allowed to creative juices to flow. The games room would be designed around table top games and video games that were set up with a tv on the wall.

Overall, the project became a relatively successful endeavour. Although the construction and finished conversion was not to the original plan of the homeowner, the finished project was quite a success as the homeowner was very satisfied. Being the first loft conversion that I had ever got to be in charge of, it was a very eye-opening project that allowed me to feel confident in the future of my career. Please check out just some of the future blog posts I will be putting up too!