Rear extension when there is a drop to the garden

[BirdsRoundandRound]

Just seeking opinions and any experience as we decide what to do about our rear extension.

We have a 1930s mid terrace built on a slope - so the front door/garden is at ground level, and the rear has a fairly significant drop of about 1.2 metres (originally there were treacherous stone steps down, we currently have raised decking and then steep steps down to the garden).

We'd like to extend, however keeping it level with the current kitchen diner seems like it won't be possible due to the height of the roof being above permitted levels, plus we then still have to deal with the drop down to the garden and don't want to use up more space in our (not huge) garden with more decking/steps.

I thought we could get by this by having a few steps down to the extension with a sloping roof taking the height to permitted level, and then a couple more steps from the extension to the garden (possibly a small strip of decking or patio).

However, I've been reading about this and having too many stairs in an open plan room (had planned steps the entire width) seems like it could cause problems with reselling (our kids are older so hadn't thought about the toddler issue, and obviously not ideal with mobility issues either).

WWYD in this situation? Has anyone come across an extension that deals with this well?

Hi OP take a look at the posts on Instagram by thehayloftdutch_barn from around June 2020. They seemed to have had the same problem in their last house so had a glass balcony with a small floating stairs heading down. That looks and seems much better than having a full run of steps.
(Ignore the fact they have another house now, they're obviously serial renovators).

@BirdsRoundandRound hello, sorry to resurrect a zombie thread, what did you decide? We're facing this exact dilemma. Amazing what some specific googling can bring up!

@feelingprettylight OP here

We haven't actually done anything yet as (depressingly but sensibly) have decided to pay a chunk of our mortgage off now and rethink the extension in a few years.

However our next door neighbour with the same issue had planning permission granted, and what they will do is lower the existing kitchen floor into the void beneath it, and have the extension all on one level straight onto the garden. This is definitely what we'll do when/if we get round to doing it

We have internal steps in our house. In the kitchen we stepped down the peninsula and had cupboards on both sides. Our drop is about the same size as yours but we have two steps in the hall and only one step in the kitchen with a lower ceiling height (floor built up). I’ll add a photo

I googled this issue and found this thread, we have the same issue at our house and looking to extend with internal steps. Did anyone else do this? @BirdsRoundandRound did you extend in the end?

@McOrange I've just come across your post here.

In short, no we haven't extended. With raising mortgage costs the cost of extending vs the impact on house price didn't add up for us and we paid off a chunk of the mortgage. The work was going to cost us an arm and a leg with all the additional complications caused by having to lower the floor etc.

What we are doing is reconfiguring our current space to make it work better for us, and making a feature of the raised decking (which also means our garden feels bigger than it would have with an extension)

That’s great @BirdsRoundandRound , thanks for coming back to me

We already have the raised deck and it is an amazing space during summer. Also considering our options to reconfigure and get more usable space indoors too (but haven’t discounted the extension possibility)