digging out part of garden - anyone done it?

[Mammina]

saw a house the other day which was great apart from the fact that the garden was raised, so the garden is at the same level as the kitchen window, with steps going up to it. What we ideally want is french doors in a kitchen that open out onto the garden, so we would have to dig down to make space for a small terrace off the kitchen & then have steps leading up. Does anyone know how big a job this is? How much (ish) it would cost etc etc
thanks

You can do it manually - skip at the front and hardboard down on the floors to protect them from the wheelbarrow. It is a bore and will add to costs but it perfectly doable.

they've brought down the price and I've found a builder who's doing the same thing in a street close by so we'll see what he says about cost & logistics of the whole thing..