Doubling Up

Katie Gutteridge and Andy Thomasson are embarking on their third major renovation project: two stone farm cottages in desperate need of repair — and planning to do it on a tight budget

It’s time for project number three. After renovating a Victorian farmhouse in 20102011, and a dilapidated 17thcentury cottage between 2012 and 2016 (both featured in Homebuilding

& Renovating), another challenge loomed.

Each project seems to get more ambitious than the last, and this time we fell for a pair of semi-detached stone farm cottages in rural Leicestershire. They were for sale as ‘Lot 2’ of a larger farmhouse shared by the same access lane.

There were many features that we loved about them, including the views from the back of the house of the rolling countryside, and in the near distance a stunning Grade Ii-listed hall, with pristinely kept grounds and magnificent ancient trees.

We also love the fact that they were built using local stone. If it wasn’t for the 1937 date stone, we’d be fooled into believing they were built in 1737, which we think is no bad thing given our love of period properties.

Our initial thoughts were to knock the two properties into one, creating a large five bedroom house with a generous master bedroom. However, in the end, we couldn’t pass on the opportunity of developing it to its maximum potential — by keeping it as two, but extending by 60% thanks to a double-storey side extension to each property.

This still allows for three good-sized doubles and a generous master bedroom on each side. We’ve opted for a large open plan kitchen/dining/living area downstairs, including as much glazing as we’re allowed, maximising the light and framing the views.

As with our two previous projects, the budget was going to be our biggest hurdle. We funded the purchase through the sale of our previous property, and that left us £200,000 (£100,000 per side) to complete the build and renovations.

On paper, that sounds like a healthy budget. However, it soon disappears — both properties not only need a full renovation but there are also the extension costs and a large amount of landscaping needed, as well as two new septic tanks that came as a requirement of purchasing the house.

Individually, the external size of each extension will be 83m2. The average cost of a double-storey extension of this size in this part of the country (East Midlands) is £917/m2, meaning a total of £76,111 in our case. But that’s not allowing for the costs of renovating the existing building, which is an additional 138m2.

We plan on cladding the extensions in a version of the same stone used in the existing building, sourced from a local quarry. But with this particular ironstone costing around £90/m2, that’s around £7,500 on stone alone.

Add the cost of the labour (roughly the same as the cost of the stone) and the addition of decorative stone such as quoins (corner stones), string course, window lintels and door surrounds, and this could easily quadruple and more.

As always, there is also the issue of timescale, which I think is going to be made more important this time given the fact that we plan on living on site from day one — the idea being to live in one while renovating the

H other… and then swap!

Next month: Navigating the planning process