Room to grow

Opened up

ictorian semis and terraces make up a large proportion of the UK’s housing stock, and though blessed with character are often cursed with cramped galley kitchens at the rear. A desirable solution is to extend to create a family-friendly kitchen-diner with doors onto the garden. Where outside room is limited, filling in the side-return – the narrow strip of land that runs alongside the ground floor – can make a huge difference to the usability of the space, while those with more generous gardens could also consider extending back by three or four metres. In this project, a modest extension has created an open-plan kitchen-diner. Timeless parquet flooring unites the space, which is flooded with natural light, and crucially, the original fireplace and mouldings have