Which of these is your house?

Start from the house you own

Three kinds of Bristol house make up most of our work. Pick yours and the page shows that house: the street side and the garden side, before beside after at the same scale, what the problem was, how planning went, and what our part costs.

Bay-fronted Victorian terrace

Usually a kitchen across the back, the middle room opened up and kept light. Two projects below.

Your house

Edwardian semi

Usually a loft bedroom under a full-height dormer, or a wider kitchen across the back. Two projects below.

Your house

A narrow flat-fronted two-up two-down terrace house painted dusty pink, opening straight onto the pavement

Two-up two-down with a lean-to

Usually a proper kitchen where the lean-to stood, and a bathroom you don't walk through the kitchen to reach. One project below.

Your house

Whole-house refurbishments and the occasional small new home don't fit a frontage card; they're on What we do. If your house is none of the three, book a first visit anyway: a house we haven't drawn before is still a house we can measure.

House 1 Your house

The bay-fronted Victorian terrace

The house we draw most. Two rooms deep, a bay at the front, a narrow kitchen tacked on the back and a middle room that never sees the sun. Here are two of ours, street side and garden side, before and after.

Not your house? Go to the Edwardian semi or the two-up two-down.

A pale green bay-fronted Victorian terrace with an off-white door, seen from the pavement.

The side-return kitchen extension behind the same terrace, with rooflights lighting a long worktop toward the old back room

Exterior view of the back of a brick terrace house with a paved garden, wooden fence, and plants.

After: the same back of the terrace with the side return built in under three rooflights and glazed doors onto new paving

Side-return kitchen extension and reworked ground floor on a bay-fronted terrace. Planning drawings for an extension like this from £2,600.

Side return filled in, middle room kept light

The problem: A galley kitchen in the outrigger, a side return that only held bins, and a middle room used for drying washing because nobody wanted to sit in it.
What changed: The side return became part of the kitchen under three rooflights. The wall between the middle room and the kitchen came out to a wide opening, so the rooflights now light the table in the old middle room too.
Planning: A single-storey side-return extension on a terrace goes to Bristol City Council as a householder application. We draw to the council's guidance on depth and height from the first sketch; that is how most of ours go through first time.
Our part: First visit, measured survey, planning drawings, building regulations drawings, help choosing the builder, visits on site. Planning drawings from £2,600. Build costs depend on the builder and the year, so we talk through them at the first visit rather than print a figure here.

Book a first visit — £295 01632 960 672

A red-brick bay-fronted Victorian terrace with stone dressings and a grey front door, seen from the pavement.

Looking from the garden doors through the kitchen and the old middle room to the front bay, all in daylight

Before: the dark middle room of the terrace with one small side window and a closed door to the kitchen

After: the same middle room opened into a daylit kitchen under a long rooflight, with the garden visible beyond

Reworked ground floor with a modest rear extension on a bay-fronted terrace. Planning drawings for an extension like this from £2,600.

The whole ground floor in one line of light

The problem: Three rooms in a row, each with its own door, and the middle one pitch black by two in the afternoon. The owners wanted one kitchen-dining room without losing a separate front room.
What changed: A shallow rear extension, a long rooflight set exactly over the join with the old middle room, and the dividing wall taken down to a wide opening. The front room kept its door and its quiet.
Planning: Kept to a depth Bristol's planners are used to seeing on this kind of terrace, with a flat roof and matching brick. The structural work needed building regulations drawings and a party wall notice to both neighbours, which we helped with.
Our part: Led by Oli from the first visit to the end of the build. Planning drawings from £2,600; the stages after that are priced one by one on Fees and stages.

Book a first visit — £295 01632 960 672

House 2 Your house

The Edwardian semi

Wider than a terrace, with a roof worth converting and a side return that is usually wasted. Two kinds of job come up again and again: a loft bedroom under a full-height dormer, and a kitchen across the whole back.

Not your house? Go to the Victorian terrace or the two-up two-down.

An Edwardian semi with a double-height bay, a gable and a recessed porch, seen straight on from the road

The back of the same Edwardian semi from the garden, with a full-height rear dormer set into the tiled roof

Before: the unconverted loft with bare rafters, a water tank and boxes, lit by one small gable window

After: the same loft as a bedroom, with a full-height dormer window looking over the gardens

Loft conversion with a full-height rear dormer on an Edwardian semi. Planning drawings priced for your roof at the first visit, £295.

A bedroom in the roof, with a proper stair

The problem: Three bedrooms, four people, and a roof full of boxes. The owners had been told a loft would leave them stooping.
What changed: A full-height dormer across the back gives standing room over most of the floor and one big window instead of several small ones. The new stair lands over the existing one, so no bedroom lost a corner to it.
Planning: Head height at the ridge is the first thing we measure on a semi, and we say plainly if the roof is too shallow before any fee beyond the first visit. Many rear dormers on semis outside conservation areas fall within permitted development; this one did not need a full application, and we confirmed that in writing with the council first.
Our part: Led by Ruth. First visit, survey, drawings for the council and for building regulations, structural coordination, help choosing the builder, visits on site. Loft fees are set out stage by stage on Fees and stages.

Book a first visit — £295 01632 960 672

A buff-brick Edwardian semi with a square bay, a beige door under a canopy and a side passage gate

The full-width kitchen extension behind the same semi, seen from the lawn through long glazed doors

Before: the back of the semi with a uPVC conservatory, a separate kitchen door and a concrete side passage

After: the same back of the semi with one wide brick extension, a long rooflight and glazed doors onto a stone terrace

Full-width rear and side-return kitchen extension on an Edwardian semi. Planning drawings for an extension like this from £2,600.

Conservatory out, kitchen across the whole back

The problem: A conservatory too hot in July and too cold in January, a kitchen the width of a corridor, and a side passage that held a shed and nothing else.
What changed: One extension across the full width, taking in the side return. The rooflight runs along the side-return edge so daylight reaches the old back room, and the island sits where the conservatory used to leak.
Planning: Wrapping the side return as well as the rear takes most semis beyond permitted development, so this went to Bristol City Council as a householder application with brick, height and depth drawn to match what the city's guidance expects. Daylight to the neighbour's kitchen window was checked and drawn before we submitted.
Our part: Led by Oli. Planning drawings from £2,600, then building regulations drawings, tender to three builders, and visits through the build.

Book a first visit — £295 01632 960 672

House 3 Your house

The two-up two-down with a lean-to

Small, close to the neighbours, and nearly always carrying a lean-to kitchen with the bathroom beyond it. These houses get the same drawings and the same care as the big ones; the trick is doing more with the footprint you already have.

Not your house? Go to the Victorian terrace or the Edwardian semi.

Before: the back of a small terrace with a peeling lean-to kitchen, a bathroom beyond it and a concrete yard

After: the same back of the small terrace with a compact brick and glass kitchen extension opening onto a paved yard

Lean-to replaced with a compact kitchen extension, bathroom moved upstairs. Planning drawings for an extension like this from £2,600.

A kitchen where the lean-to stood

The problem: A lean-to kitchen you could touch both walls of, a bathroom you reached by walking through it, and a yard nobody used.
What changed: The lean-to and bathroom came down. A kitchen the full width of the house went up on the same footprint plus a little, glazed at the end and lit from above, and the bathroom moved into the back bedroom's old box room upstairs.
Planning: Small rear extensions on these terraces often fall within permitted development, but the neighbours are a metre away, so party wall notices and the neighbour's daylight matter more than the planning form does. We draw the extension so it does not overshadow next door's kitchen, and we help with the notices.
Our part: Led by Ruth from the first visit to the last site visit. Planning drawings from £2,600; what the build itself cost its owners is a conversation for the first visit, where we can talk about your yard rather than theirs.

Book a first visit — £295 01632 960 672

Notes from the people who draw them

What usually works on this house, from Ruth and Oli

Hand-drawn plan sketch of a Victorian terrace ground floor with the side return filled in and a rooflight over the middle room

Bay-fronted Victorian terrace

The middle room is the whole problem. Take the back wall off and the kitchen gets brighter while the middle room gets darker. So we put the rooflight over the join, not over the garden end, and we open the wall to a wide opening rather than a doorway, so the light has somewhere to go.

Bristol's planners see a lot of these. A sensible depth, a flat roof with a rooflight and brick that matches the back wall tends to go through; a glass box the length of the garden tends not to, and it bakes in June anyway. The common mistake is making the extension bigger instead of the middle room lighter.

Ruth PinchArchitect and director

Hand-drawn roof section sketch of a semi with a rear dormer and a head-height line on cream paper.

Edwardian semi

A semi has a roof worth having. The pitch is usually steep enough for a full-height dormer at the back, and the hip at the side can often be squared off so the stair lands somewhere sensible. Head height at the ridge is the first thing I measure, and if it's not there I'll say so at the first visit rather than after the drawings.

Downstairs, the side return is the prize. Many rear dormers and modest rear extensions on semis are permitted development; wrap the side return too and you're usually into a planning application, which is fine if the brick, height and depth are drawn to what the council expects. The mistake is a conservatory. We've taken a lot of them down.

Oli ValeArchitect and director

Hand-drawn plan sketch of a two-up two-down with the lean-to dotted out and a new glazed-ended kitchen drawn in

Two-up two-down with a lean-to

The lean-to is where the kitchen already is; it's just a bad one. We take it down and build on the same footprint or a little more, glaze the end wall and the roof rather than the sides, and get the bathroom out of the way so you stop walking through the kitchen to clean your teeth.

The neighbours are a metre away. That means party wall notices, and it means drawing the roof so it doesn't take their light, which the council will ask about even when the extension itself is permitted development. We'd rather sort both out on paper than on site.

Ruth PinchArchitect and director

In the owners' words

Owners of houses like these, after the builders had gone

4.9

out of 5, from 64 reviews

We haven't pulled short lines out of those reviews to decorate this page. They were written in full about whole jobs, and we'd rather you read them that way. Ask when you book and we'll point you to the ones from owners of your kind of house.

Bay-fronted Victorian terrace

Kitchen extensions, side returns filled in, middle rooms opened up and kept light. The house we've been reviewed on most often.

See the terrace projects above

Edwardian semi

Loft bedrooms under full-height dormers, and kitchens across the full back where a conservatory used to be.

See the semi projects above

Two-up two-down with a lean-to

Lean-tos replaced with proper kitchens, bathrooms moved, yards made usable, neighbours kept on side.

See the two-up two-down above

Book a first visit

See what your house could become

Tell us which of the three it is, or just the street. Ruth or Oli will come and look, walk through what has worked on houses like it, and give you a straight idea of what the drawings and the build might cost before you decide anything.

The first visit is £295. Planning drawings for a rear extension from £2,600. Every stage after that on Fees and stages.

Book a first visit — £295

01632 960 672 hello@example.com Monday to Thursday 09:00–17:30, Friday 09:00–17:00