Because moving house is very expensive a lot of home owners often decide to renovate their existing house and do the building work themselves. Sometimes because the family has got bigger they need to build an extension to create an additional bedroom. Home owners who can do the work themselves can save themselves a lot of money. Before starting the work a lot of people will read renovation manuals and these can be found in most libraries. Some very good manuals are written in German so translating them will be quite difficult. People who have learnt the second tongue at school and can speak German as second language (Deutsch als Fremdsprache) will not have a problem. There are DIY manuals on sale in the shops which are very helpful for anyone considering doing building work themselves. German courses (Deutsch Kurse) are always available at the local college and many people take a crash course in order for them to understand the renovation manuals. After reading manuals and taking advice from other people the work can begin. Building extensions to a property takes a long time and planning permission has to be granted before work can commence. Other renovations to a property might be making the kitchen bigger by knocking through into another room. Building an additional bedroom can sometimes be done by building over the garage. Whatever job is done to extend a property it will certainly be cheaper than moving house.

In certain parts of Germany two or even three families live in the same house. This is made much easier these days with modern storage solutions like telescopic rails (teleskopschienen24.de) and walk-in cabinets. Houses are much bigger than in the UK and they can easily be divided into separate apartments if necessary. In England it is very rare for two or three families to share the same house as most couples either buy or rent their own when they get married. Over the last few years more apartments have been built than family houses. This is because a lot of people prefer to stay single and many married couples prefer to wait before starting a family. Other people do not want children at all and a one bedroom apartment is quite sufficient. Older people with large houses often downsize for a small bungalow or apartment which is easier to manage. Another way to create additional space in a house is to have a loft conversion. This is cheaper than building an extension and most people can easily do this. To build any extension there must be space at the side or back of the house which not everyone has. By converting the loft space another bedroom together with en suite facilities can be made which is a vast improvement to any family needing more space.