Surrey Homes | SH109 | February 2024 | Education Supplement inside

Previous pages & this page: Through the addition of
a kitchen and side extension, Sophie and Sarah have
increased the footprint of their cottage by over 50%
We’ve all seen weird and unbalanced loft extensions,
ground floors that creep too far down the garden
or jut out at odd angles. There are regulations
set in place to guard against many issues, but it is hard
to legislate for beauty and taste. Extensions can appear
incongruous, charmless – or worse, be a faux copy of the
original style, ending up neither matching nor contrasting,
but undermining a building’s integrity. It is all too easy to
focus on how the internal space will be, to focus on details
and not think about the overall look – and end up with a
weird box sticking out of the side of your house. Avoiding
this can be tricky. Employing a good architect will help.
There are no photos of the front of Sophie and Sarah’s
extended period home here, you will need to visit Sophie’s
website sgarchitects.co.uk, or take my word for the fact that
this is a shining example of how to extend. Both the loft and
kitchen extensions have been designed with enormous care
and attention to detail, inside and out, so that the end result
truly enhances the external appearance of the property.
“The bricks on the extension are deliberately a different
colour,” explains Sophie. “They tone in with the bricks
of the original house, which are dark brown. There’s a
contemporary contrast and juxtaposition – we didn’t
want a pastiche of the Victorian.” The clever mix of
bricks complements the original style, tying the old and
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