This Bournemouth property, constructed in 2012, features a kitchen at the front with a small seating area, complemented by a spacious lounge at the rear boasting French doors opening onto the garden.
According to the client, the existing layout poses several challenges.
They expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of sociability, noting that daily cooking activities isolate them from the rest of the family. Additionally, the lounge’s layout is suffers from a lack of space and inadequate accommodation for visitors and for social gatherings. With a third child on the way, the need for more functional space becomes increasingly urgent.
“Its not very sociable, if we are cooking then it is separate from the rest of the family. The lounge area is one box room, not very sociable if we have people round. We need more space for the children to run around and have a third baby on the way, so it is only going to get worse!”
The first proposed option suggests a significant transformation.
The kitchen is reimagined as a snug room, featuring an L-shaped sofa to create a more intimate setting. Simultaneously, a 2-metre extension into the garden facilitates the creation of an open-plan kitchen diner at the back, offering ample space for family occasions.
Building upon the foundation of Option 1, this variation introduced additional improvements.
An island is integrated into the kitchen design, enhancing functionality and serving as a central hub for culinary activities. Moreover, a designated seating zone within the kitchen diner area enriches the space, catering to diverse family needs and preferences.
Driven by budget considerations, Option 3 explores more extensive possibilities.
Here, a rear extension is pursued, resulting in an expansive open-plan kitchen diner. Sliding doors seamlessly integrate the interior with the garden, while a newly introduced utility room and side door enhance functionality and circulation within the home.
Diverging from conventional extension designs, Option 4 presents a distinctive approach. Rather than spanning the entire rear facade, this option adopts a different shape extension, preserving more garden space.
The resultant L-shaped configuration integrates kitchen, dining, and living areas, facilitating efficient zoning and imbuing the space with character. Moreover, this option successfully resolves the pre-existing level discrepancies within the property.
Reflecting on the workshop experience, the client’s feedback remains unchanged:
“Really good. If you look at the first option which is what we first thought of, actually we can do a lot more with the space than we were thinking. I like the last two. Really useful – I don’t think we would have come up with this or thought that it was possible.”
With the impending arrival of our third baby, it got myself and Gav talking about space at home and what the potential was to extend our current house.
So obviously we had a chat with Laura and booked in a workshop with her to look at our options.
Laura spent the morning with us taking us through what we were suggesting and then as the workshop progressed Laura was very cleverly able to use her knowledge and experience to expand and develop our initial idea of what we could do to our current home.
By the end of the workshop we had several different designs which has defiantly given Gav and I some food for thought which include things we would have never of thought of without Laura’s brilliant design skills
Laura was so professional and so easy to bounce ideas around with. The workshop has been an invaluable exercise as we move into the next chapter of our lives.
I would highly recommend Laura to anyone thinking of extending or remodelling their home. Professional, efficient, extremely knowledgeable and a great visionary. Thank you Laura, for an outstanding service :-)
Gav and Fiona
Thank you Laura, for an outstanding service :-)
This is an interesting site, a garden that slopes upwards and the possibility to hugely change how this family uses the house through moving the kitchen from the front to the back. Interestingly they have a fitness business and clients use the back garden so we needed to take into consideration the pubic / private areas.
Pride Road
