The brief, the design, the build
Their brief: one room to cook, eat and see the garden
Claire and Tom had lived for six years in a Victorian stone semi in Cirencester. The kitchen was a galley at the back, two metres wide, with one small window onto the garden. With two children, meals happened in shifts.
What they wanted was simple to say: a kitchen big enough to eat in, open to the garden, built in stone that looked as if it had always been there.
What they didn't want was a year of carrying drawings from an architect to a planning consultant to a builder, as friends down the road had done. They wanted one team to hold the whole job, from the first sketch to the last stone.
Reclaimed Cotswold stone, laid to match the old walls
Our designer came to the house, measured up and sketched the first ideas at the kitchen table. The drawings opened the galley into a new room across the back of the house, with a wall of oak-framed glass facing the garden and a rooflight over the table.
The walls are reclaimed Cotswold stone, close in colour to the house and laid in matching courses. The same team took the drawings through planning permission and settled the party wall agreement with the neighbours.
We had one number to call, from the first sketch to the day they handed over the keys.
Week six: reclaimed Cotswold stone going up in courses that match the house
A 16-week build, with the family living at home
The build ran 16 weeks, from the first dig to handover. A sink, a hob and the fridge set up in the front room kept everyone fed, and the old back wall came down only once the new room was weathertight.
Today the galley is a pantry. The new room holds a long oak table under the rooflight, with the garden on the other side of the glass.
If you are planning an extension in the Cotswolds, start where Claire and Tom did: with a free design visit at your home, where we look at the house with you and talk through what you would like to build.
