Beaconsfield Road, Upper Knowle, Bristol

A beautiful house with a modest garden, this house suffered from a dark, uninviting north-facing kitchen with a bizarre lean-to extension and disused outside toilet.

As the garden couldn't stand to be any smaller, the answer was to demolish the odd lean-to, put in an engineer-designed pillar to support the corner of the house and then remove part of the wall and wrap the whole thing in beautiful hardwood doors.

The before and after pictures show the massive increase in light, turning the kitchen into an inviting space.

The before picture was taken at the height of summer when the room was dark and the kitchen table unused. The after picture was taken in December (you can see the snow) and to take the picture I had to clear up the remains of coffee and cake from the new family kitchen table. Notice how much brighter the kitchen has become.

It must be said that, apart from regaining the footprint of the outside toilet, the work didn't actually make the building any bigger. But instead of a beautiful house with a smallish garden and a dark kitchen, the house is now beautiful with a smallish garden and a bright inviting kitchen. Whether this means an increase in value or just being easier to sell is debatable.

Click on the images below to see enlarged versions...