Home Extensions - How Designs Have Changed Through the years

If you were to visit a typical moderately prosperous suburban estate, built perhaps inside the 1930's 50 years ago the probabilities are it would have changed little from when it was first constructed. Maybe there'd be a few garages, where they weren't part of the original, often a ramshackle collection of buildings often created from concrete panels or corrugated sheet materials. There would however be relatively few extensions once we think of them today. Move ahead fifty years and most will have been altered significantly. Windows and doors will often have been changed (oftentimes several times as different materials and styles come and go). In addition the majority will have some sort of extension and many of the earlier more basic garages may have been replaced by more elaborate matching structures. Admittedly half a century having passed you might expect a certain amount of change but even investigating estates of twenty or thirty years old today there'd still be a lot of alterations. What makes we increasingly keener to alter our homes?

The generation who initially bought those new properties in the 1930's had often result from crowded inner city accommodation so your own bathroom, kitchen and perhaps even a bedroom each seemed your global away form whatever they had previously known. By concerning the 1960's quite a few could have changed hands and even for people who had not, people were gradually acquiring more goods. With the cooking a fridge and washing machine were becoming common so that it was beginning to feel somewhat cramped. The box room no more seemed quite so roomy with childrens' seemingly endless method of getting toys. It was and also the time when increasing numbers purchased their first car, even though they had not reached the quality when given the choice you could possibly actually leave it outside, unless you wanted to watch it rust before up your eyes and not be able to start a winter morning.

The 1960's therefore marked the beginning to any significant extent of extending homes. Extensions out of this era were often more overtly additions to the building with flat roofs being extremely common and windows would often stick to the popular style at the time rather than necessarily match the main building. Prefabricated extensions also became well liked with walls often of concrete panels or timber and roofs of either corrugated plastic or perhaps a felt flat roof and frequently built as a 'sun lounge'.

Because 1970's and 80's moved on there became a growing trend towards home extensions matching the prevailing building. There are several possible causes of this:-

· Town Planning departments increasing relation to even fairly minor schemes.

· The prefabricated sort of extension, particularly when utilized as a habitable room (rather than a conservatory or similar) became more technical to justify under building regulations with increasing requirements of insulation etc. and perhaps a more robust interpretation of them by some councils. Any savings in price began to diminish.

· Finally and perhaps most importantly there was a realisation by householders it had become generally better to result in the extension look a more integral part of the original building. This is partly driven with the increasing value of houses which occasionally has become a national obsession. The massive scale sale of council houses also increased the number of owner occupiers who were often keen to individualise them, undoubtedly in part to show which they now owned the home.

Southern Highlands Builders
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