What Do You Really Want, More Space or a Showstopper?

This is one of the biggest questions to ask yourself before starting a home extension or loft conversion:

Do you actually need more space, or are you chasing the showstopper or the dream of something high-spec and “wow”?

There’s a big difference between needing room for a growing family and wanting that Pinterest-perfect extension with floor-to-ceiling glass and designer finishes. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with either—but knowing what you really want (and need) makes every decision easier.

Take our own house as an example. My husband wants to build a loft suite complete with a big bedroom, generous bathroom, and potentially turn the potential fourth bedroom into my walk-in wardrobe (a dream, right?). But realistically, if we take away that fourth bedroom for the WIW, we probably can't sell the house as a four-bed later on. And if we keep it, there’s barely any space for wardrobes in the master.

We’ve had the conversation. He said, “I think you just want this big ‘look at me’ project.”And to be fair… part of me does. I want to prove what’s possible. But the truth? We don’t need that space. The suite would be lovely, but we’re not desperate for it. I’m more interested in showing that big things can be done, even without huge budgets or dramatic finishes.

The vision I have is a little wild: we’d take the roof off and build two new storeys. When I say two storeys, I mean a first-floor extension plus a spiral staircase leading up to a loft bedroom, a proper statement piece. But again, that’s because I want to show what’s possible, not because we need to do it.

That brings me to a really important point about planning.

If you're hiring an architect, most will come back with designs that are visually beautiful—but beauty doesn’t always equal practicality. In our case, we’re focusing on maximising usable space. My husband is tall. I’ve got a lot of dresses. We’ve got two kids. Space matters. Pretty finishes can come later (or not at all).

So, back to you—what do you actually want?

If you’re just looking for space, it can be done on a reasonable budget. If you’re aiming for a glossy magazine-worthy project, that’s totally valid, but it will cost more.

Look at our Fox Den. I don’t think it looks super fancy, but we built it affordably and it still has that wow factor when you walk in. We built it for space and we got exactly what we needed, without breaking the bank.

Our upcoming extension won’t be flashy either, but it will work hard for us. And because of that, I can build it for less.

Follow my YouTube channel @TheUnfilteredFemaleSiteManager for the full journey on our extension project.