case study
at the front of the house, which is south facing.” To maximise the amount of direct sunlight he could get into the house, Ian decided to flip the stairs – accessing them from the open plan area instead of at the front door. “We were then able to add roof lights on the garden facing side of the pitched roof,” he explains. To achieve this a new landing had to be created on the upper storey, which not surprisingly formed part of the bigger picture. “A great method to increase the sense of space in small areas is to add height; we used a portion of the extension to add more head room and lifted the ceiling in the kitchen and bathroom giving the opportunity to introduce a string of high level windows and infill between the lower level roof.” Upstairs the raked ceiling was maintained which lends intimacy to the bedrooms and ensuite. Despite not being allowed to bring as much light as he wanted to the front of the house, Ian made up for it at the back, adding three roof lights to a flat roof extension. One of the challenges to adding an extension was the difference in floor levels. “There was a big dip from the front to the back of the house so we did some work to make sure the ground floor was level throughout.” “To achieve this we retained the existing slab at the front of house and used that as our benchmark, (allowing for the thickness of timber battens and timber floor), then we excavated the existing concrete slab at the back down about
“A great method to increase the sense of space in small areas is to add height; we used a portion of the extension to add more head room...”
As part of the reconfiguration, the staircase was moved to face the living area instead of the front door. Above and left: Ground floor living room facing the road.
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