Size, height, position and use limits decide whether a garden room needs planning permission. Here's how permitted development works, and where it stops applying.

Internal or external? A practical comparison of retrofitting solid brick walls — cost, thickness, breathability, disruption and the planning constraints that decide which route is possible.

Sensitive, practical ways to sharpen the front of a 1930s semi — from the front door and windows to pointing, rooflines and planting — without stripping out the details that give it character.