What to do with side of house NOT a side return.

[TaupePanda]

We are buying a pretty standard victorian terraced house. It has a front living room, a back reception (dining room) and a galley kitchen. The kitchen is 18.5 ft long by about 9 ft wide so it isn't quite big enough to also be a dining area though we may put some sort of breakfast bar in.

this leaves us with an 18.5 ft 'alley' down the side of the house, into the garden. Lots of people build into that with a side return but I can't, for the life of me, see how spending £100k plus on an extension down the side could possibly be justified! It's 6 foot wide so it isn't like you end up with an enormous room at the end of it - it will be 16 ft by 18.6 ft - I don't care what other people think, that just isn't huge. Our current rental has a 27 ft long kitchen diner and we don't personally feel like we have a ridiculously large room (though we admit it is big).

So, my question is - what have others done? It is SW facing so it gets light and I did think a vertical allotment sort of thing. Is there anything fun or interesting people have done? I would love to see / hear about alternatives. TIA

We have a small 2 bed Victorian terrace with an extended kitchen 14 x 9 and a small south facing side return. Other houses in the road have extended into it many years back, but I don’t really the benefit would outweigh today’s costs. Ours just has a storage box and some nice paving stones down the side, and a garden hose. We are going to spend the money on buying a bigger house.

I think 18ft by 9ft leaves plenty room for a dining area.

But regarding the side area, you could build a box on the side away from the back living room, open a doorway from the kitchen and have a utility room/pantry there. If you wanted to be fancy, you could plant the area between the living room and extension so that you get a nice outlook from the window/s.