We've Got Planning Permission

After many letters, meetings and misunderstandings we have finally managed to get planning permission for an extension to our house.

The left hand side of this pair of 1950 semi's is ours

I'm not even going to go into detail about the planning process as it just winds me up, but lets just say it wasn't straight forward and at times felt that it was pretty hopeless (a comment about having no access to the garden even though we own the field next door does spring to mind, but I digress).
I'm glad we did preserve with it though as now we have full permission granted (providing we get building regs passed off) to build a two storey extension on the side of our 1950's semi and a small porch on the front.
The extension will include a kitchen dinner downstairs, meaning we can turn our existing tiny kitchen into a small utility room. Upstairs we will cut our existing bathroom in half to form a corridor to the extension and a small shower room, as well as a new family bathroom and another bedroom in the extension.
The addition of the small porch will mean that when you enter into the house you won't walk straight into the stairs and it will give us somewhere to leave coats and boots.
The extension isn't going to be massive but it will make the house a much better size to bring a family up in (even giving us room for more children in the future?) but still be manageable and easy enough to heat and maintain.
As for getting it built its going to be quite a slow process, we're not going to borrow any money to do it, just as and when we can afford it. I'll be building most of it myself with help from friends and family along the way if I can rope them in. hopefully we'll get the porch build in the spring and footings in for the rest next year but watch this space to see how we get on!