Park Road – South Hale Conservation Area

Loft Conversion Hale

PJH Architectural Services were appointed by our client to modernise and rejuvenate the 2nd floor of this substantial 6-bedroom semi-detached Victorian Era property. The property is located on Park Road in Hale and sit’s within Hale’s conservation area. Our client is wanting to completely renovate the top floor and create a master bedroom suite. The second floor as existing boasted 3 relatively spacious bedrooms and walk in storage cupboard, although useful to have, our client felt this space could be better utilised. and as such this Hale loft conversion project was born.

Sitting down with our client we discussed potential options and formed a list of wants, needs and nice to have’s. It was clear to our client that the sense of space on the top floor of the property was a big downfall, mainly caused by the complexity of multiple ceiling heights combing a mixture of horizontal and valued ceiling levels, which is to be expected with a Victorian property of this nature.

Due to the grand nature of the property, the roof timber layouts were complicated to say the least but did offer the potential for vast ceiling heights if utilised correctly. The most obvious starting point from a design point of view, was to remove the low horizontal ceiling and thanks to marvellous invention of insulated plasterboard we proposed a “vaulted ceiling” all the way up to the underside of the ridge. The existing highest ceiling height of 2.3m, now reaches 3.8m at its peak. This drastic increase will provide a much larger sense of space to what will become the master bedroom.

The next challenge was the layout of the room. With this being effectively a “loft” space and despite the increased ceiling height at the ridge, we still had to think about limited head heights in certain areas and we had to be careful about which walls could be removed structurally, without completely re-designing the full roof, which would have blown our clients budget for the project through the roof (pardon the pun!). Negotiating with a tricky floor plan is every designer’s dream, and we came up with a number of layouts to best facilitate our client’s needs. Looking to utilise areas with most generous ceiling heights as areas of high traffic and vice versa – it made sense to position the bed directly below the ridge. Other areas such as the dresser could be better fitted at the lower ceiling heights within this loft conversion in Hale.

The large spacious en-suite is complete with a freestanding bath and walk in shower as well as his and hers sinks. As this will now be a 1-bedroom floor boasting 80m2 of floor space. By introducing a ¾ height wall at the back of the bed, we were able to put the en-suite directly behind the bed whilst still maintain a physical separation between the two spaces.

Further to this a large walk-in wardrobe was situated on the opposite side of the bedroom, allowing the landing space between the two areas to be used as access from the lower floor but also creating a separation between the two areas. We have looked to utilise a number of “pocket-doors” which can disappear entirely into the studwork reveals, this allows the floor to remain as one open plan space but also provides privacy if and when required. In addition to the floor plans and detailed sections we have produced an internal CGI visual of the sleeping area of the bedroom, so our client could better visualise the space. Whilst our detailed floor plans provide an accurate representation of the newly created internal space, sometimes it can be difficult to visualise exactly how the finished article will look, especially when considering such an intricate spaces, therefore the internal visual can be a fundamental part of the design process.

As this internal reconfiguration did not require planning permission, our services consisted of provided our client with detailed building regulations drawings and handled the building control submission. All our building regulations drawings double up as tender drawings which enabled our clients to tender out their projects to builders – we look forward to seeing how this project looks upon completion.

Thinking of pursuing something similar to our “Loft Conversion Hale” project? Feel free to take a look at some of our blogs:

The value of detailed Architectural Drawings
Natural light brings extra life to your home
Tendering – Everything you need to know.

If you need any advice on the first steps of designing and planning an external renovation project, extension or new build feel free to get in touch for a brief chat, we are here to help.

Email: enquiry@pjhas.co.uk

Tel: 0161 4600382