Extension and refurbishment
Originally a tired mid-century bungalow, this property hadn’t seen much updating in at least 40 years. The new owners approached Tom Spriggs Architect Ltd to take them through a briefing process, a sketch scheme option exercise and develop a design. The brief was to increase the size of the building to include a live-in and open plan kitchen-diner. We developed a few options on how this could be achieved and settled on moving the kitchen and dining rooms to the west end of the building forming a ‘T’ shape on plan. This gave a good improvement with the bedrooms also, and crucially allowed the build to be completed in phases, which a roof extension upwards might not have.
At one end of the ‘T’ a new north-facing porch and utility room, the other; a large south facing window illuminating the dining table overlooking the garden. By moving the original kitchen and dining room, and the entrance to the building, it resolved a poor public-to-private hierarchy and gave a better driveway relationship.
Bungalows usually suffer from poor public-to-private hierarchy, in that you have to walk past bedrooms to get to the kitchen, dining or bathroom. Unlike terraces or houses with stairs and vertical circulation, on a bungalow it is often quite simple to move the front door – sometimes it can really improve their relation to their gardens too, as many are sited centrally on the plot. Here by adding a new proper porch, we tackled all the issues of coat and shoe storage, and solved the circulation problems in one go. The house now has a semi-public kitchen, dining, and lounge area, with a door off to the bedrooms and bathrooms, almost forming a separate ‘wing’.
After securing planning permission a set of detailed drawings were prepared for the builders to price and construct from. Included in the works was a renovation of the whole building, including roofing, insulation, solar panels, windows and doors, heating and plumbing, electrics, new bathrooms and of course the two storey extension.
The overall result is a great set of spaces that remain practical as well as offering a bit of wow and additional floor space. None of the materials are exotic or particularly expensive but a well proportioned and simple combination gives a great final result.
The veranda to the west is loved and used daily, giving a protected space to the large sliding doors from the dining room. This allows the doors to be open on warm but wet days and takes some of the energy out of the suns rays before they strike the large windows. It runs full length and also offers a section of solid roof towards the utility space for hanging washing and storing wellies etc.