Dealing with ‘dark room’ when building rear extension

[CatUnderTheStairs]

We’re knocing through the back to make a kitchen diner. Roof lantern and sliding doors or french windows, glaring of some kind!

There’s a snug that won’t get much light, going to put a woodburner in it and maybe some storage along the back wall. What did you do with this dark area when you got an extension built?

Floor plan as it is now.

Not what you asked but have you thought about the sunlight with the lantern. If you face the wrong way the eat can be blistering? Velux windows means you can use blinds.

Us and neighbour did similar but she had lantern....regrets it a lot and furniture gets covered with throws at certain time of the day

The back of the house faces south west so I have been wondering about that, but pitched roof wouldn’t be easy....

It’s an old house, about a 100 years old.

We reconfigured our extended house to make the dark room a toilet and utility ( but did have soil pipes in correct place, ability to ventilate).

I also think that reconfiguring to accommodate a utility room and loo sounds like a good idea. Also a big cupboard for storing coats and shoes etc as there doesn’t seem to be much space.

We knocked through and have a darker pocket of our open planned living area/kitchen diner. We use the darker corner as a seating area with tv, stove etc.
It’s south facing - so it’s actually well lit. In the winter/spring/autumn, the sun is lower so it reaches the darker area more easily.

It’s actually fine, it doesn’t feel dark when you’re sat in it in the day.

Ours is same as pp. The dark pocket of our kitchen/diner/family room is the kitchen area. It is opposite the large doors to a west facing garden and does get enough natural light during the day. We did originally want to make this part of the room the utility/wc however it was not as practical with plumbing/soil pipe and ease of access to the room

I think we’ll be over budget if we move the kitchen to the darker bit. But we have thought about it.

Our thoughts at the moment are to build a new utility to the right of the kitchen.

@CatUnderTheStairs

Really think hard about the lantern. Ask your architect. Sloping roofs can go down to 13degrees with special tiles. Ours is brilliant but for 4 months over summer at a point jute day fr a couple of hours we use the Velux blinds. If you have the sub blistering in through the lantern, there will be times of day you won't be able to sit at certain points in the room and will be worse as a lantern is a big wide window....think of what conservatories are like.

My neighbour is sooooo regretful

That’s a really good point aBout the lantern. I’ll check with the guy doing the plans...

We're having a similar layout and planning to have the 'dark' space as a sort of snug/playroom. I think you just have to embrace the fact that it will be dark and go for a cosy look with lamps and snuggly furniture.
We will have a separate 'grown up' front living room which is lovely and bright.

Same as @NotPennysBoat, it’s the playroom. We kept the original (single glazed) french back doors that lead from what was the dining room out to the garden except now they divide the play room and the extension. We normally keep them propped open but can shut them. We’ve made it quite cosy in there with lots and lots of toy storage. I envisage it being an Xbox type room in a few years time!

Building control made us keep a door from that room into the corridor/hallway though as otherwise there wasn’t a safe fire exit route. We were a bit annoyed at first although actually that’s worked brilliantly as the children don’t have to constantly traipse through the kitchen to get in and out of the playroom and it’s bought more light into the room.

Our dark room is lit with a sloping skylight where the extension meets the house - we made the extension ceiling lower than the original house ceiling to allow the skylight to slope. Also it’s open plan to the extension so gets light from the glazing at the rear. And it’s got glass doors to the front room so light that way too. (May have been overkill but I was worried it would be dark).

Having said all that, with your layout I would definitely turn the snug into a utility/loo/coat storage. Since you already have two other sitting rooms and will have a big family kitchen/diner.

Agree about heat especially if you are SW. We have an awning over our big rear glazed doors which is invaluable, and a skylight that opens. A few pointers

1. you don’t need a full pitched roof for Veluxes or other pitched roof skylights. You just need one section of roof to be angled (eg the strip where extension meets house), the rest can be flat.
2. you can get opening skylights for flat roofs.
3. you can get blinds for non velux skylights - but they do cost more.
4. think about blinds/awning/brise soleil/overhang or some other kind of shade early on - much better than retrofitting.