Renovation and Extension 

Renovating and extending your home with LA Hally Architect

For LA Hally Architect, full home renovation and extension makes up the majority of our work and is an area in which where we hold significant expertise. We enjoy the challenge of altering and manipulating existing spaces to create truly magnificent and unique homes. Our portfolio includes many challenging projects including where we have adapted humble bungalows into magnificent homes, renovated Victorian properties to Passivhaus standard dwellings and extended listed properties, working alongside conservation specialists.

We are always open to taking on interesting and exciting renovation projects in the Hampshire area. Much of our work has been published in Living Etc, The Sunday Times, Build It and Home Building and Renovation magazines, which are a testament to our skills and design flair. We have also been asked to write articles for some of these magazines, covering current hot topics in relation to renovation, and showcasing our latest projects. Take a look at our Publications page to see more.

We are often asked to fully refurbish interiors and facelift the exterior of properties. Our experience in these situations has taught us the value of establishing a budget early on, this allows us to understand the extent of refurbishment that may be viable and how far we can push the design to answer the requirements in the client brief. As is often the case in home renovation and extension, that the brief and the budget sometimes initially don’t marry up. In these cases we work to find clever solutions creating a scheme that works in terms of functionality, budget and aesthetics. This can involve several meetings with the client to talk through alternative options, design ideas and materials to be used and cost saving options to ensure our clients get the most for their money and end up with an affordable renovation that creates a beautiful home and improves the way they live.

Renovation can be a complicated undertaking as there are often things to consider such as the existing structure, drainage, overhead electrics, overshadowing etc. which needs to be taken into account at an early stage of the project. This is essential to ensure solutions to any issues can be cleverly designed into the overall scheme, to avoid anything spoiling the look of the building. We also prepare pre-construction documentation as our role as principle designer, which makes clear the strict parameters the contractor will have to work within.

Key to a successful renovation is proper site analysis to identify issues, and a clear brief from the client to guide us to a successful outcome. We understand that, for some clients preparing a brief can be a daunting task and sometimes you may not know exactly what you want, but there is no need to worry. At LA Hally Architect, we are more than happy to guide you in exploring ideas and possibilities to help decide the best route to your upgraded home.

At LA Hally Architect, we do not work to a pre-determined style and never push clients to adopt style choices they are not comfortable with. Our preferred approach is to work alongside the client, aiming to understand their preferred style, introduce options they may not have considered learning even more about the likes, dislikes and tastes of our clients. Every refurbishment is individual to the client and we enjoy translating their brief into a scheme we feel suits the client and their lifestyle. We always seek further input from clients and offer time for reflection, often resulting in tweaks and alterations to the design to achieve an agreed scheme to proceed with. We work on projects of all shapes and sizes, as a guide, we tend to work on projects with a budget no smaller than £150K up to £2M, however we will sometimes work on smaller projects that interest us and community projects which may have lower budgets.

If you’re wondering if refurbishment and extension is the right option for you, we find that refurbishment tends to be less expensive than a new build project, but it also depends on how much work you might want to undertake, and whether you are keen to upgrade the performance of the fabric of the homes, for example in regard to energy efficiency. We are happy discuss options with you in initial meetings and can introduce you to appropriate consultants to if there are particular areas of building performance you wish to target.

With any project, we understand that clients tend not to like surprises when it comes to cost. At various point throughout the project we’ll give you guidance as to what the likely build cost may be. Obviously there are a number of factors that influence cost, from choice of materials to the choice of contractors and speed of the build, so our guidance is very much an estimate. For more accurate costing we sometimes advise working alongside a quantity surveyor, which we can help you to appoint if necessary.

What can we offer you

• A feasibility study, if required. This is usually a time-based package of work to help determine options with regard to building size and plan options, this is a precursor to working on planning permission and is sometimes a good option to establish whether ideas are practical, affordable and likely to be permissible.

• Pre-planning application. This is a precursor to a full planning application, which can be useful for larger, or more complicated schemes to test the water with the local planing department and ascertain whether the design direction needs to be altered before developing the design fully.

• Planning and listed building consent package For most projects some kind of permission is required, these packages include all the necessary drawings and documentation to be able to submit applications for approval. Where approval is not required, a very similar package of work is undertaken to turn initial design ideas into fully-worked up design schemes.

• Building control packages. All building work in the UK must adhere to building control standards. These packages build on the planning level drawings, adding all the required information to ensure standards will be met. For example, including structural requirements, insulation build up, fire-proofing, accessibility etc.

• Schedule of works package. This is a collection of drawings and documents that specify in great detail the work that is required to be undertaken and materials to be used, from demolition works through to the completion of the build. This also includes fully worked-up drawings including lighting and electrical layouts, joinery etc. to allow contractors to accurately price the work, which is essential to be able to compare prices and choose a contractor.

• Full scope of works, to include all of the above as well as tender package preparation, for contractors to price from, tender comparison to help you chose the contractor who will carry out the work and contract administration, where we take on the role of ensuring fair assessments are made of the value of work carried out, ensuring payments made throughout the project are appropriate. We also help manage relationships and ensure all parties are meeting their contractual obligations. Typically, the cost of this full service is based on a percentage of the contract figure, as this is a good measure of the volume of work. You can find out more about our fees on our FAQs page.