Side extension on Victorian terrace - crucial for a nice kitchen diner?

[Hairsterical]

Looking for advice/thoughts. We're knocking through our kitchen diner in our Victorian mid-terrace that has a classic bay window on the dining room side, and putting in frameless glass curtains at the back. Spending maybe £80k in all to knock out a chimney and reconfigure and replace kitchen, outside decking etc. A question is that I can't find any examples like what we are doing, even for ideas, and everywhere I look it is all side return extensions or rear extensions to open up the space. We can't go out back so it would have to be to the side, but obviously it costs a heckuva lot. I'm worried though that every house for sale in our area has a side extension (although google maps shows they are not ubiquitous) and ours without it is just going to look dark and pokey despite the £13k glass doors. (south facing but sun doesn't stream in current kitchen at the back much) Even without the chimney, there just isn't that much space. I literally can't find any Victorian houses that knocked through this space but didn't do a side extension - anyone seen one of these?

I didn't extend to the side of my kitchen in my Victorian mid-terrace (like you, every other house has done so in my area). I have no regrets about doing this - it's a big kitchen with enough room for a large dining table. The only thing I don't have which I might have done if I'd gone to the side, is a separate utility room but I could have done this anyway by using the space better.

I actually prefer it this way. Everyone I know that has knocked into the side return has a useless middle room which is just a walk through from the front room to the kitchen with no natural light. I still have a back reception room with a door onto the garden. (I'm slightly at a loss as to how to use that room, but think perhaps a study would be the best use of the space now I'm working from home most of the time).

Thanks probablysane. Do you have any photos, or how did you configure the space? We're having trouble figuring out how to best use the space. DH wants a sofa in the space by the garden doors, on top of a table needing to go there. Right now I have a pleasant dining room (with bay window) with a door to a u-shaped kitchen (in back of house toward the garden). We're losing the back wall of that kitchen now so cramming everything in seems impossible.

Can you share your floorplan? Is your kitchen currently at the back? I did something similar (I think) decided against the expensive side return and reconfigured space, so you walk through the kitchen diner into a living space at back and bi-folds opening to garden.

Thanks! Here's the floorplan

Friends have the floor footprint you have OP but the kitchen/diner was one through space (they also had a loo right at the back).

Do you have to have a solid wall between the kitchen and diner?

Oh, sorry just realised your floor plan is the before.

Yes this how it is now. We lose the back wall of the current kitchen by putting in the glass doors. It's just not that big.

Yours is like ours, except we also have a loo there. We've decided not to do the side return- our side return is wider than usual and the house next to ours is a later build and doesn't block the light. We use it loads, have a table and BBQ there and I really like the u shaped kitchen (we lived abroad for a bit and had a massive cavernous kitchen and I hated it- it was so annoying to work in and we kept losing stuff). We also have big original wooden doors at the back of the reception and that room is lovely and sunny as a result- when they are open you can circulate around.

The back roof on the outrigger is sloped and we have a big roof light in there on upstands- it makes the roof look loads higher and floods it with light. If I did it again I would also drop and widen the window right at the very back so it's quite panoramic out the back.

We would quite like a utility room but tough really.

And yes knock through the kitchen and diner and widen out the aperture as much as possible. We also removed the doors into the hall so you get a sighting the whole way through the house.

• sight line

What are you planning to put where?

Dining at the glass door end? Seems wide enough for this.

You could have a lovely kitchen with a window seat in the bay.

Have a play on a room planner like IKEA or DIY kitchens. Really handy to start imagining the space.

Sorry missed the update your husband wants a sofa at the end. We did similar but opted for a picture window.

Everyone said 'oh don't you want doors' but the trouble was that just made a corridor.

Instead I love sitting on the corner sofa with my feet up looking out at the garden.

Thanks for the thoughts!! I hadn't thought about removing the hall door. Had the idea it was needed for fire regs, but we do have wired smoke detectors so ??
We are basically looking at frontloading the kitchen into the current dining room so that we use all that entry door-side wall space and around half the party wall wall space, with a peninsula out of that, plus an island tucked by the bay window. There is some question mark about space to walk through past the peninsula depending on that island size. Also a question mark if we can fit stools then on the peninsula or that island, or possibly turn the window seat into a seating area for the island. Then the dining table would be behind the peninsula going out toward the garden, with a bench seat backing against the peninsula for space saving seating. The sofa may need to downgrade to something smaller though!!

I saw this that sort of shows how we'd do the wall and peninsula and then an island instead of sink in the bay (which is interesting but I don't think so.)

I don't think you need a side return but I think you also need to be realistic about what this room will hold.

You already seem to have two reception rooms. What are you using those for that you require a third seating area?

I'd go island or peninsula but not both. You could have a deeper peninsula with some seating the other side or run the kitchen lengthways with a long thinner island.

Just get comfy dining chairs or one with a sofa style bench so it is multi purpose.

For the hall, I'd have a glass door so you get light and the view through but can shut it off.

With the wall removed that’s identical to our floor plan when we bought right down to the bay window. We got it for a great price, it struggled to sell, even in the good market a few years go and the first thing we did was the side return extension so that was a kitchen under a year old including bifold doors etc all in the skip.

@TropicalTrama with building costs the way they are though, if you don't need or want one, no need to do it. I don't think you'd get the value of building it back at the moment, even if you were selling, especially in the SE. We had a scout round the other month and it would be cheaper to move.

OP you have yours the other way round from us- we'd perhaps think of that if we do it again. I'm sort of obsessed with this house https://b-vds.co.uk/projects/leytonstone-house/ which has an interesting take on it too where they've just popped the back bit out slightly (but their house is oriented the other way). I don't think you can have an island and a big lounging area in there, there's just not enough space. We don't actually have the bay there, it's just flat, so you've got a bit more room but even so.

I didn't have a bay window in my back room, but otherwise I had 3 rooms in there which I knocked into one long one. I also knocked through from the back reception (it was useful to be able to see the young children in the front room from the kitchen but they're all older now and I would prefer it all separate). I basically have units down the straight side of the kitchen and two sets of bifold doors along the other side. A long dining table too.

I don't regret not doing a side return extension (which I couldn't afford anyway) as the kitchen is big enough for a dining table and lots of storage. I don't particularly like the houses with side return extensions as the middle room is always redundant.

@Croissantsandpistachio I’m confident we’ve got the costs back. I don’t personally see why you wouldn’t want one because the kitchens in these terraces just feel really narrow without it. Where we are (SW London where Victorian terraces are 90% of the housing stock so I’ve been in a lot) they’re just the norm now e.g. on our road the only ones without are the unkempt rentals or the ones lived in by elderly folk.

LOVE that glass box extension and that whole house though!

We're lucky because our run of terraces is much wider than the average so it doesn't have that galley feel (it does also make it a very sizeable room once done). If I had a gazillion pounds and could get some smart architecting to tie the middle room in properly then maybe! But build costs have doubled of late so it's a much heavier financial proposition.

But you can have a perfectly nice house without one. We had a little show and tell on our street whatsapp group and there's a really wide range of layouts- some people still have the bathroom in the outrigger (because otherwise you have a tiny one upstairs). All compromise somewhere I guess.

@Probablysane how did you do the knockthrough, did you take out the back hall wall? Sorry to hijack OP.

Thanks!!! Calmdown- this will be our only dining space, no formal dining room in the living room, a concept I don't like. We have a double reception with original shuttered wooden doors between them that we keep open, front used for a tv family space and the back reception has a piano but otherwise is poorly used. I don't want to put a dining table in there though, I really hate that.
TropicalTrama - haha you are just what I fear - I told DH that whoever buys it will rip out whatever we put in now and do the side return. So why not have us do it now and enjoy it. We're not planning to sell FWIW any time soon.
I have been sitting on savings so actually could afford the extension. I reckon we got a good price doing our loft a few years back so maybe it evens out now to pay a lot even if we don't make it back. But I'm still going to plan A, which is no side extension.

This is another interesting use of the space I came across, but DH wants more loungey seating in the sunny rear

@Hairsterical hello, just wondering what you ended up doing, we have this exact dilemma/ shape house!

We have a small kitchen diner, and have a comfy sofa bench against on one side of table, then three chairs on the other.

means a you have comfy seating without needing separate sofa. You can get corner dining sofas also if better with your layout

This kind of thing