Bigger kitchen diner or bigger lawn?

[mum2015]

We are planning an extension and have a choice to extend by 2m or 3m. The 2m extension gives 20x27 kitchen-dining-living room and 53 feet garden. The 3m extension gives 23x27 kitchen-dining-living room and 56 feet garden.
The 20x27 feet room is enough for our requirements, but a 23x27 room has more breathing space and looks better on 3d plan views. I like gardening, but adding a feet doesn't increase the plant beds much, mainly lawn feels bigger.
If you had choice, what would you do?

Bigger extension definitely.

Bigger extension. You use your inside space all the time (especially kitchen diner space), garden space only in nice weather. Your garden will be a reasonable size even with the bigger extension so the extra space will be much more useful inside.

Extension. And then convert more of the lawn to flower beds. Grass is boring

Its working out if you do the smaller option if you will have enough room to move around the dining table comfortably without people needing to move so you can get past.

We are going to put a conservatory off our kitchen in the next year or so and have been trying to decide how big we should go. It will be 3m wide, as thats pretty much how wide the kitchen is, but how long is the concern. We first thought of 5m, but that takes up too much garden, so are now deciding if 4m is enough or if we could even cope with 3m. We need to dig into our lawn as it slopes up away from the house, and need space around the conservatory with ideally a small patio. We also need to put in some steps up to the top tier. I'm just going to measure my dining room and see just what space we have now and go from there I think.

With 2m extension, we will have enough space for all the furniture we need. 3m extension would give extra space indoors. One thought is that cost of 3m won't be much higher that 2m, and we are anyway going through all the trouble of extension, so might as well make it bigger, but then another thought is why make bigger if it isn't needed. So had to decide

The bigger extension would be much better than an extra bit of lawn to mow.

I'm forever wanting a bit more house and a bit less garden, and I love being outside.

I would measure out the 2 gardens and get a feel for the sizes but would be inclined to go for bigger garden. No point having a bigger extension if you compromise the garden too much. Plus I’d want space for patio, lawn and beds but also taller shrubs/trees to screen fences and add height. When you are in your extension, you will be looking at the garden!

BIgger extension

We are in this position and are actually going for 2.5m extension which still gives us enough space for patio, grass and shed.

Thanks. Still undecided.

Honestly, you're unlikely to notice 3 feet less of garden, but 3 feet more of house could make a huge difference.

Think carefully about how you transition from the house to the garden. A LOT of architects are completely rubbish at this and just shove in easy but ugly patios. There are more attractive ways of bringing green space closer to the house.

Thanks. One option I am thinking of is to have patio on only one third width of extension, so remaining two third width will have lawn starting after one meter from bi-fold doors. Will it look ok?

Here's my recently completed 2 meter extension, it's surprising how much difference it makes. We did specify 2m internal space though

Teamrick,
That looks amazing. Would please share floorplan and more photos.
We are looking at 1.7m side and may be 2 or 3m back extension of our house. It doesn't look like a lot so I keep thinking is it enough to do 2m or go for 3m for back of the house. We would knock through three rooms so that would help to create one large space.

How often does anyone really get to enjoy the garden in the UK? go for the big extension!

mum we did an L shaped extension that was only about 1.7 out from the house down one side, 3 metres out along the back if I remember correctly. It transformed the place.

Beware of extending too far due to reduction in light levels