How we work

Here are the top ten reasons why clients have been coming to us for their extensions since 2003:

1. Our reputation

We’ve been helping clients extend their homes since 2003, and during that time we’ve created some fantastic extensions, loft conversions and new-builds. During that time, we’ve never had an architectural survey come back wrong, we’ve never had to claim on our public liability or indemnity insurance and we have over a 98% success rate when it comes to helping our clients obtain planning permission – so we know what we’re doing! Almost all of our work comes from recommendations / word of mouth too, so our reputation matters to us.

2. Our ability to listen

We’re conscious that every home is different, every client is different, and that we all use our homes differently. Here at CMD Design Ltd, we listen to our clients needs to help create fantastic design solutions that will fit their needs & their family lifestyle like a glove, and not a straight-jacket. It’s not about us telling you what we think you should have – it’s about helping you to identify what’s important to you, and then helping guide you through the design process. When all’s said and done, our aim is to help transform your existing house into the home you’ve always dreamt of…

3. Thinking “outside the box”

Part of our role is to challenge your way of thinking and come up with design solutions that maybe you’d not even considered. We’ve had numerous clients who’ve come to us with a certain expectation, which we’ve then challenged and exceeded, leading to spectacular results that leave our clients absolutely delighted. On the other hand, sometimes we end up going “full-circle” after exploring other options and arrive back at where we started – that’s fine too though; as at least you’ll have then explored all of the available options and won’t find yourselves spending thousands on your extension, only to be left thinking “I wish we’d done this” after it’s been built.

4. Our design approach

I’m sure we’ve all seen extensions on home in the past that just don’t work – they either look like an eyesore externally, or the layout just doesn’t work internally. Some architects out their will design beautiful expensive cantilevered structures with unusual materials, without giving consideration to A: whether their clients can afford it, B: whether it will fit in with its surroundings, or C: whether it will still look smart and contemporary in 10-15 years’ time. If you’re looking for an ultra-modern glass & copper box-type extension on the back of your house, then we’re probably not the company for you. However if you’d like a contemporary, fully planned-out extension that compliments your home, adds value & seamlessly blends into the environment that it’s going into (which will keep your neighbours happy), then we can certainly help you achieve it!

5. We transform houses into homes

Designing an extension isn’t just about creating four walls and a ceiling – it’s about space, light, colour & textures too. We’ll make sure that when we design your extension, we won’t just consider what it looks like from the outside, but we’ll also plan out how it works on the inside too! So whether you’re looking for a kitchen space big enough for an island, a dining area big enough to entertain the family at Christmas, a master bedroom suite that’s big enough for an Imelda-Marcos sized shoe collection, or a living area you can use for the most extravagant of house-parties, we’ll plan it all out so that you can ensure your newly extended space works just the way you want it to.

6. The complete design package

We can pull in the complete team of professionals to provide a comprehensive package for you – we can bring in reputable structural engineers, party wall surveyors, planning consultants, energy assessors, project managers & other architects if required too, so your home will be in safe hands.

7. Transparent fixed pricing

We’ve known clients who’ve been stung by architects charging well over £100 per hour (we only charge a fraction of that) and being landed with huge bills which have unexpected extras & additional costs. Here at CMD Design Ltd,  our indicative fixed-fee pricing structure is clearly set-out on our free architectural guide (available from the downloads / resources section of this website), and it also gives indicative costs for disbursements (such as planning fees, structural calcs, party walls etc) so that you don’t end up getting any nasty hidden surprises! We can then arrange a site visit to confirm our costs, which would be sent to you in writing prior to the start of any design works. You’ll also find that we’re happy to do as much or as little of the works as you wish (so if you instruct us for your planning / design phase, you’re by no means committed to having to use us for building regs, project management, etc).

8. Future proofing

We’re very conscious that our needs change as we get older, and we try to plan for this when designing your extension – it may be that you need an annexe for your child’s au-pair or for elderly disabled relatives (which are becoming increasingly popular as people are now living longer & care costs are escalating), you may relish family time when your children are young, but what about when they become teenagers (& need space / a room of their own)? You may be looking at doing your build in stages (to spread the costs out)? What about future saleability? All of these things can be considered and factored in.

9. Accurate costings advice

We’ve seen many clients who engaged other architects’ free initial consultations to find that they’re just being told “whatever they want to hear” in terms of build costs, and then find after spending a few grand on drawings / calcs / fees that the build-costs come in at way over their original budget- to the point that the whole project ends up being a non-starter & they’ve wasted their time & money. (typical example – we saw a client who’d been told an extension could be done for the client’s £30K budget – it turned out that to build the shell  would have been £30K, plus the £6K VAT, plus the £13K kitchen, plus the £4K fees, which made it around £50K – which is a lot more than £30K!). Here at CMD Design Ltd, whilst yes; we do charge a nominal fee for our initial design consultations (£100 +VAT), it means that we can be honest with clients budget expectations and will not mind seeing clients who actually won’t be able to move forward due to budget restrictions (as the 2-3 hours of our time will have been paid for, but it would only cost the client £100, instead of thousands for drawing up a full proposal).

10. And finally

Because we care about what our clients think of the service we give them. Most of our work comes from personal recommendation, so it means the world to us for you to have an extension that you’re proud of, that transforms the way you live in your home, that makes a fantastic addition to your property and one that means that you’ll be happy to recommend us to others in the future.