Extension Architecture

  The architect fifteen minutes from our house in Walton Upon Thames had a beautiful portfolio. Extensions. New builds. Commercial projects. A bit of everything. He had done two loft conversions in the past three years. The architect forty minutes away had done thirty seven. Only loft conversions. Nothing else. No extensions. No new builds. No commercial work. Just roofs turned into rooms. We nearly hired the local one. Convenience. Familiarity. The comfort of someone nearby. Then we asked both the same question. What is the most common problem you encounter on 1930s semi loft conversions. The local architect paused. Thought about it. Said "probably headroom." The specialist didnt pause. "The staircase landing on the first floor is almost always too small. You need to borrow about 400mm from somewhere and the best place depends on which direction the existing joists run. If they run front to back you can cantilever the new floor over the stairwell. If they run side to...

The builder called us on day three. He had opened up the old kitchen ceiling and found Artex. The textured coating that was popular in the 1970s and 80s. The textured coating that often contains asbestos. Most homeowners panic at this point. Asbestos. Health risk. Stop work. Expensive removal. Project derailed. But our barnet architects practice had already planned for it. They had flagged the Artex during the first visit. Budgeted for testing and removal. Built the timeline around it. What could have been a crisis was just a scheduled task. Why Artex Means Asbestos Artex and similar textured coatings applied before the year 2000 often contain white asbestos. It was added to the mix to strengthen the coating and help it set. Completely legal at the time. Completely common in houses built or renovated in the 1970s and 80s. Our house in Finchley had Artex ceilings throughout the ground floor. Applied by a previous owner in what looked like the 1980s based on the style. We never thou...

The walls were up. The roof was on. The plastering was finished. The kitchen was about to be installed. And then the electrician arrived and made six decisions that changed how our kitchen works more than any structural element the builder had constructed over the previous ten weeks. Our ealing architects practice had specified every socket, switch, and light position on the drawings. Not as an afterthought. As a core part of the kitchen design. Because where you put the electrics determines where you put everything else. Most homeowners never think about electrics until the electrician asks where they want the sockets. By then it is too late to get it right. Why Electrics Get Ignored During Design Because they are invisible. Nobody walks into a kitchen and admires the socket positions. Nobody photographs the light switch layout for Instagram. Nobody tells friends about the double socket behind the bin cupboard. But try using a kitchen where the sockets are in the wrong place. Th...

Nobody thinks about the boiler when planning an extension. You think about the kitchen layout. The worktop material. The bifold doors. The rooflight. The connection to the garden. The boiler is in a cupboard in the hallway doing its job quietly and you assume it will keep doing its job after the extension is built. Our architects putney practice checked the boiler during the first visit. Not because we asked them to. Because they check it on every project. What they found explained why so many Putney extensions feel cold in winter even with underfloor heating installed. Our boiler was too small for the extended house. And nobody would have noticed until the first cold snap in November. What Too Small Means Our boiler was a 24kW combi. Adequate for our three bedroom Victorian terrace in its original configuration. Three radiators downstairs. Four upstairs. One bathroom. The boiler coped fine. Hot water on demand. Radiators warm within twenty minutes. No complaints. Add a thirty sq...

Most people don't call an architect because everything is fine. They call because something about their home has stopped working. Maybe the layout feels awkward now that both of you work from home. Maybe the kids have outgrown their shared bedroom. Or maybe you've just spent another Sunday morning in a kitchen that's too dark and too small, and you've finally had enough. In Enfield, this happens a lot. People buy homes they love in a neighbourhood they don't want to leave, and then spend years putting up with spaces that don't quite fit. The house looked perfect on the estate agent's photos, but living in it every day tells a different story. The good news is that most of these problems are fixable without moving. You just need someone who can look at your home with fresh eyes and figure out how to make it work properly. At Extension Architecture, we've helped homeowners throughout the borough do exactly that. If you're ready to make changes, our te...

Every architect we consulted wanted to remove it. The chimney breast in our rear reception room. A brick column projecting 350mm into the room taking up valuable floor space. Dead space. An obstacle. Something that belonged to the Victorian era and had no place in a modern open plan kitchen diner. Our architect in ealing said something different. "Dont remove it. Use it." We thought she was joking. The chimney breast was the reason the room felt cramped. Removing it was the obvious first step. Every renovation on our street had removed theirs. It was practically a rite of passage for Ealing homeowners. She wasnt joking. And what she did with that chimney breast is now the favourite feature in our entire house. Why Everyone Removes Chimney Breasts Because it seems logical. The breast projects into the room. Remove it and you gain 350mm of width across the full depth of the room. On a room thats only 3.5 metres wide that 350mm feels significant. But removing a chimney br...