Extensions · Worcestershire · 2022

Rear Kitchen & Dining Extension — Open-Plan Family Living.

A full-width rear extension in matched red brick under a hipped tiled roof, opening the back of the house into one bright kitchen, dining and living space with a new shaker kitchen, quartz worktops and herringbone flooring.

Overview

The original house had a cramped galley kitchen and a separate dining room, both cut off from the garden. The brief was simple in words and demanding in practice: one open-plan space that works for cooking, eating and sitting, with proper light and a direct door out to the patio.

We built a full-width single-storey rear extension in brick matched to the existing elevation, under a hipped tiled roof with black rainwater goods, then opened the back of the house up with a structural beam and fitted the whole space out ourselves.

The Shell

A rear extension that reads as part of the original house.

Foundations, drainage diversions and a brick-and-block cavity structure, faced in a red multi chosen to sit with the existing brickwork rather than fight it. The hipped roof was kept low so it tucks neatly under the first-floor windows and doesn't crowd the elevation.

French doors sit centrally with fixed side lights, flanked by wall lights, so the elevation is symmetrical from the garden. Existing sandstone paving and brick-edged beds were lifted, levelled and re-laid up to the new threshold.

Full-width rear kitchen and dining extension in matched red brick with hipped tiled roof and central French doors seen from the garden — The finished extension from the garden — matched brick, low hipped roof.

Close view of the brick extension elevation with white French doors, wall lights and re-laid sandstone patio and brick edging — Symmetrical elevation, wall lights either side, paving re-laid to the threshold.

Opening Up

One room for cooking, eating and sitting.

The rear wall of the original house came out on a steel beam, tying the extension into the existing dining and living areas so the whole ground floor reads as one space with defined zones rather than a bolted-on room.

Ceilings were levelled through, downlights and pendants set out to the new layout, walls skimmed and decorated, and herringbone flooring run continuously from the kitchen through to the seating area to hold it all together visually.

Open-plan kitchen, dining and living space created by the rear extension, with herringbone flooring, sofa, breakfast bar and cream shaker kitchen beyond — Looking through from the seating area — one continuous space.

Herringbone parquet-effect flooring laid through the new kitchen against cream shaker units and quartz worktops — Herringbone laid on a true diagonal set-out, running room to room.

The Kitchen

Shaker units, quartz throughout, and a breakfast bar to sit at.

A cream shaker kitchen in a U-plan with a peninsula breakfast bar, integrated double oven and tall housings, finished in veined quartz worktops with a matching upstand and a full-height quartz splashback behind the hob.

First and second fix electrics were run to suit: sockets set into the splashback line, under-cabinet lighting, three pendants over the peninsula and a plinth heater. Small details — mitred quartz edges, socket alignment, a downdraft-style extractor recessed into the canopy — are where a fitted kitchen either looks made-to-measure or doesn't.

New cream shaker kitchen with quartz worktops, peninsula breakfast bar, glass pendant lights and integrated double oven — The finished kitchen — U-plan with a peninsula to sit at.

Detail of the veined quartz worktop, full-height quartz splashback, induction hob and recessed extractor in the new kitchen — Full-height quartz splashback behind the hob, extractor recessed into the canopy.

Outcome

The back of the house, completely rethought.

A galley kitchen and a shut-off dining room replaced by a single light-filled space that opens straight onto the patio — built, fitted and finished by one team, with the family living in the house throughout.