Mansard & Rear Extension

Stoke Newington, Hackney

A complete rethink

Full disclosure, this is my house. When we were first looking for a house to make into our family home, we were searching for a proper doer upper - aren’t we all?! After finding these kind of houses seemed to come at a huge premium, we ended up buying actually quite a nice but small house in Stoke Newington, with lots of potential to reconfigure and extend.

The original house only had two bedrooms - we needed three - and the kitchen was in the dark basement, completely disconnected from the rest of the living space or garden. We decided we needed to have a complete rethink about where all the spaces sat.

Flipping it

After playing with lots of different options - yes my husband is an architect too - we decided on a completely new layout for the ground floor and basement.

The ground floor became the new heart of the house, with the kitchen moving up from the basement. The new open plan kitchen and dining room makes the most of the high ceilings and light from the big Victorian sash windows, and becomes a space where the family hang out during the day.

We moved the living room down into the darker basement - a cosy space to enjoy in the evenings. And lots of built in storage to hide all the kids toys away.

Being north facing, the basement doesn’t get any direct sunlight. This keeps it amazingly cool in the summer. For the colder winter evenings, we installed slimline underfloor heating, which keeps the room lovely and toasty while barely effecting the head height.

To connect all the living spaces back together, we added a fully glazed extension into the existing rear lightwell. The extension connects the ground floor kitchen to the basement living space. Openings in the original external walls at ground floor level let us to hear the kids in the basement, while allowing everyone to be in separate spaces.

We also extended the basement ligthwell out into the garden and installed tiered planters. This allowed us to extend the planting down to the basement, as well as bringing loads more natural light into the darker lower areas.

The final issue to solve was the third bedroom. This one was pretty straight forward in principle as there was lots of precedent along the street for adding a mansard extension to the roof.

We decided this would make a fantastic main bedroom with ensuite bathroom. Right at the top of the house, the room is private, flooded with light, and has great views of the rooftops out the front and tree canopy out the back. A perfect haven at the end of the day.

An added bonus, is the private roof terrace to the front. The planners wanted the roof pulled back from the front of the house to make the mansard look smaller from the street below. The resulting space has been a small sun trap of a roof terrace - perfect for a morning coffee. If we ever had the time…

Connection, privacy and comfy dining chairs!

We absolutely love the way the house works for us. The kitchen is where we spend most of our family time. With space for a big table and comfy dining chairs, the dining area fluctuates from being a craft table or kids den, to somewhere great for entertaining friends and family - and comfortable enough for them to want to stay.

When we need some quiet time, we can retreat down to the basement while still feeling connected to the family upstairs.

Now it feels like a house that works hard for us while being a joy to live in, and one that will evolve and flex as the kids get older.