Single Storey Rear Extension, Broadstone

The brief

The house was a typical Broadstone 1930s semi – three good bedrooms upstairs, and downstairs a small galley kitchen cut off from a dining room nobody used. The owners wanted the whole ground floor rear opened into one space, with enough glazing to make the garden feel part of the room.

What we found

Two things showed up at survey that changed the design. There is a mature oak two doors down whose root protection area clips the corner of the plot, so building control required the foundation taken to 1.4m with a compressible board to the trench face. And the original surface water drainage ran straight across the middle of the proposed footprint.

Both were priced honestly at quote stage rather than appearing as a variation once the digger was on site. The oak added around three days and a quantity of concrete; the drainage diversion added two.

The brickwork

This is the part we cared most about. The original 1930s stock brick has a soft orange-red face and a lime-rich mortar that has weathered to a warm buff. A modern machine-made brick in cement mortar would have read as an obvious add-on from the first glance.

We sourced reclaimed bricks from a yard near Wimborne, built a sample panel against the existing wall, and adjusted the sand in the mix twice before anyone was happy. The result is a join you have to be told about to find.

The result

A 28 square metre open kitchen-dining space with a 2.4m rooflight and sliding doors to the garden. Twelve weeks on site, finished within two days of the programme, and the family stayed in the house throughout – we did not break through into the original building until the new shell was roofed and watertight.