Extending into the underused alley at the side of your house could be the key to transforming your home, adding light, space and a flexible new layout

An underused side return has so much more potential than its role in many homes as a dumping ground for compost bags, plant pots and other garden miscellany. With careful planning, those extra few square metres could make a huge difference to your indoor space in the form of a side-return extension.

Perfect for terraced houses and those with dark, cramped back rooms, building on to the side can create a spacious, light-filled kitchen-diner that fulfills your open-plan living dreams, or provides room for the utility or pantry you’ve always wanted.

The benefits of a side-return extension over other types of additions are that they’re typically less costly and require no space sacrifice other than the strip of land down the side of your property. Most can be done under permitted development and can integrate coveted design features - like wide-opening doors to link indoors and out.

Over the page, we reveal what you need to know to get your project started and speak to homeowners who have successfully extended out to the side. Read on…

WORDS ELLEN FINCH PHOTOGRAPH MARTINA O’SHEA

REAL HOME 1

LIGHT, NEAT AND TIDY

Extending their Victorian terrace gave Donna Fenby Taylor and her family an open-plan space that’s easy to keep tidy thanks to a secret storage hack

‘We bought this house over eight years ago, moving from a one-bedroom flat that we’d extended using Architect Your Home. We were keen to do some build work to add value and put our own stamp on this place. We lived here for eight months, then I found out I was pregnant and my husband was offered a job in Berlin. We rented this property out for four years while we lived out there, putting all our extension plans on hold. When we returned, now with two young children, we knew we definitely needed to start work.

‘The house is on a hill, so the front is higher than the back. It feels a little higgledy piggledy with half-flights of stairs and some quirky features - it had a door that opened up onto thin air from the living room because the garden was another storey below.