PROJECT STORY
Marmont Road, Peckham SE15
A three-bedroom Victorian terrace with a dark galley kitchen and an unused side alley. Eighteen weeks later it had a twenty-eight square metre kitchen, dining and garden room on the ground floor and a two-bedroom loft above.
Side return extension · Dormer loft conversion · Structural steel · Party wall · Completed 2025
LOCATION
Peckham SE15
PROPERTY
1890s Mid-Terrace
DURATION
18 Weeks
ADDED SPACE
42m²
THE BRIEF
What the clients asked for
The house had been in the family for eleven years and was no longer working. Two children, one narrow galley kitchen, a dining table in the front room and a side alley three metres wide that nobody had used since the bins moved to the front. Upstairs, three bedrooms and one bathroom between four people.
They came to us with a folder of clippings and a clear idea of the feeling they wanted rather than a fixed plan. Their notes described a kitchen you could cook in with people around you, a table that stayed put, and a top floor that gave the eldest her own room before she started secondary school.
We didn’t want an extension that felt bolted on. We wanted it to feel like the house had always been this shape.
Priya T. — homeowner
The three things they cared about most
- Light into the middle of the plan, where the old kitchen had none. The return sat on the north-east side, so this needed to come from above rather than through the back wall.
- Keeping the Victorian front of the house intact — cornice, floorboards, sash windows and the tiled path — while making the back of it entirely contemporary.
- Living in the house through the build. That single constraint shaped the sequence more than anything else.
How we approached it
The design work took six weeks before a single tool came out of the van. We drew the ground floor three ways: an infill only, an infill plus a one-metre rear return, and a full wrap-around. The middle option won because it gave enough depth for a run of units on the flank wall without eating the garden or triggering a full planning application.
The loft ran through structural design in parallel. A rear dormer took the head height across the full width, and a hip-to-gable on the side gave the staircase somewhere to land without stealing from the bedroom below.
We agreed a fixed price with a costed schedule of works before starting. Two variations came up during the build, both raised by the clients, both quoted in writing before proceeding. The final invoice was £2,180 above the original contract sum, entirely accounted for by those two changes.
Three ground-floor layouts were drawn and priced before the clients chose the side return plus one-metre rear return.
Project details
SCOPE
Side return extension, rear dormer loft conversion, full ground-floor renovation
CONSENTS
Permitted development, building control full plans, party wall awards with both neighbours
STRUCTURE
Steel goalpost frame, 178 UB rear beam, new pad foundations
GLAZING
Four-panel aluminium bi-fold, 2.4 × 1.2 m fixed rooflight, three dormer casements
TRADES ON SITE
9
HANDOVER
September 2025, zero outstanding snags at 12 weeks
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BEFORE AND AFTER
The same view, eighteen weeks apart
The old kitchen was 6.4 m² with one window and units on a single wall. The finished ground floor runs to 28 m² across kitchen, dining and garden room.
BEFORE
AFTER
THE BUILD
How we did it, stage by stage
The family stayed in the house for all eighteen weeks. That meant a temporary kitchen in the front room from week two and a sequence built around keeping the first floor habitable and the front door usable throughout.
01
Enabling works and temporary kitchen
Scaffold up, dust screens sealed at the hallway, and a working kitchen with sink, fridge and two rings installed in the front reception. Party wall awards served and agreed with both neighbours before any breaking out began.
Weeks 1–2
02
Foundations and structure
Pad foundations dug by hand down the return, inspected and signed off by building control. The steel goalpost frame and rear beam went in over four days with the flank wall needled and propped. The old kitchen wall came out last, once the new structure was carrying load.
Weeks 3–6
03
Shell, roof and dormer
Blockwork up, warm flat roof laid to fall, and the rooflight kerb formed. Upstairs, the rear dormer was framed, felted and tiled within a single week so the roof was never open overnight. Windows and bi-folds in by the end of week nine, which made the house watertight.
Weeks 6–9
04
First fix and staircase
Full rewire of the ground floor and loft, new pipework to the two additional bathrooms, and underfloor heating laid across the extension. The new staircase to the loft was made off site from the survey dimensions and fitted in a day off the existing landing.
Weeks 9–12
05
Plaster, joinery and finishes
Skimmed throughout, then in-frame cabinetry, honed quartz worktops and the oak flooring the clients had chosen at week four. Cornice and skirting in the front rooms were repaired to match rather than replaced, which was the whole point of the brief.
Weeks 12–16
06
Snagging and handover
Two weeks of decorating, then a walk round with the clients marking anything that needed attention. Eleven items on the list, all closed within nine days. Building control final certificate, electrical certificates and appliance warranties handed over in one folder.
Weeks 16–18
GALLERY
The finished house
Photographed six weeks after handover, with the family living in it.
The full twenty-eight metre run, kitchen to garden doors. The rooflight sits directly over the island because the return faces north-east.
DETAIL
Specification
Structure
Steel goalpost frame to side return, 178 × 102 UB rear beam, mass concrete pad foundations to building control approval
Roof
Warm flat roof, single-ply membrane, 150 mm PIR insulation, 0.15 W/m²K
Glazing
Aluminium four-panel bi-fold in anthracite, 1.4 W/m²K; fixed rooflight 2.4 × 1.2 m
Floors
Engineered oak, 220 mm board, over wet underfloor heating on 70 mm screed
Kitchen
In-frame painted joinery, honed quartz worktops 40 mm, integrated appliances
Loft
Rear box dormer plus hip-to-gable, 2.4 m head height, two bedrooms and one shower room
Heating
Existing boiler retained, system flushed, seven new radiators and two heated towel rails
Certification
Building control final certificate, NICEIC electrical installation certificate, gas safe, 10-year workmanship warranty
AFTERWARDS
What we would tell the next client on this street
Marmont Road is a run of near-identical 1890s terraces, so the lessons transfer. Two things mattered more than we expected.
The first was the rooflight position. On a north-east return the back wall gives you very little, and the temptation is to widen the doors instead. Putting the glass overhead where people actually stand did more for the room than another metre of bi-fold would have.
The second was sequencing the dormer before the ground floor plaster. It meant scaffolding stayed up two weeks longer, but it kept the wet trades in one continuous block and took a fortnight off the programme overall.
Every trade turned up on the day they said they would. With two small children in the house that mattered more than anything else.
James & Priya T. — Peckham SE15
Similar work
Side return extensions · Loft conversions · Victorian restoration · Kitchen renovation
MORE PROJECTS
Other homes we have finished
LOFT CONVERSION — CAMBERWELL SE5
Dormer & en suite
Rear dormer and hip-to-gable creating two bedrooms and a shower room.
14 weeks · completed 2025
FULL RENOVATION — DULWICH SE21
Victorian terrace
Rewired, replumbed and replastered throughout with cornice and joinery restored.
26 weeks · completed 2024
REAR EXTENSION — FOREST HILL SE23
Double-height kitchen
Four-metre rear extension with a raised lantern over the dining table.
20 weeks · completed 2023
Every project on this page was managed by the same team from first survey to final certificate.
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