Kitchen Extensions

Extending specifically to create the open-plan kitchen and living space families want

A kitchen extension is usually about more than square footage — it's about reshaping how the ground floor of the house works, most often by combining a new extension with removing an internal wall to create the open-plan kitchen, dining and living space that many older houses simply weren't designed with.

Most kitchen extension projects combine two things at once: new floor space built outward, usually to the rear, and the removal of an internal wall between the existing kitchen and an adjoining room, since the real goal is very often an open-plan space rather than simply a bigger, but still separate, kitchen. Removing that internal wall means a structural opening needs forming — a steel beam, sized by a structural engineer, carrying the load previously supported by the wall being removed, which is a piece of engineering that has to be right regardless of how straightforward the rest of the extension is. Kitchens also carry more services than most rooms — plumbing for sinks and appliances, electrics for a much higher concentration of sockets and lighting than a typical living space, and often gas or an equivalent supply for cooking — so first-fix planning has to account for where units, appliances and islands will actually sit before floors and walls are closed up. Bi-fold or sliding doors connecting the new kitchen space to the garden are a common feature of this kind of extension, since a kitchen extension is often as much about connecting the house to the garden as it is about adding indoor floor area. Getting the layout right — where the island sits, how circulation works between cooking, dining and the garden doors — matters as much as the structural build itself for how well the finished space actually functions day to day.