Reda Constructions
Bringing the next room into view.
Reda Constructions
Bringing the next room into view.
A slim bay thrown open, the original pantry rebuilt as a scullery, a new frameless rooflight drawing the sky in over a quiet shaker kitchen.
Build duration
14 weeks
Added footprint
22 m²
Glazing
Frameless 2.8m rooflight
Kitchen
Shaker, oak interiors
The brief
A family of four in a 1905 Edwardian semi had run out of room in the kitchen and the patience to work around it. They wanted the side-return, a quiet kitchen, and for the house to still feel Edwardian from the street.
The challenge
The existing pantry held a critical steel that couldn't move without re-routing a 6m beam above the ground floor. The lightwell on the party boundary was narrower than the drawings suggested. And the rear elevation looked onto a conservation-area terrace, so the glazing had to be invisible from the street.
How we built it
01
Party-wall awards agreed in week one — we scheduled excavation around the neighbour's half-term holiday.
02
New 203x203 UC steel replaced the pantry beam; load transferred through two pad stones into the chimney stack.
03
Side-return foundations stepped down the natural garden slope to save 2m³ of excavation and keep the old rose beds.
04
Frameless 2.8m roof-light set 900mm in from the rear, invisible from neighbouring windows but flooding the new kitchen with light.
05
Shaker kitchen from a trusted workshop; we built the island off-site and craned it in through the now-open side-return.
The outcome
The family was back in the house 14 weeks after handover of keys, with the new kitchen functional from week 12 onward. The conservation officer never wrote once — the rear elevation passed without comment.
“Three months from first drawing to moving the family back in. No surprises, no drama. I'd ring Reda again tomorrow.”
Gallery
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A first site visit is free and genuinely useful — we'll walk the house, ask sharper questions than most, and write down what we heard.
