I want a kitchen extension, but am turned off by the standard boxy, bi-folding doors look. Any recommendations for a more exciting/ornate extension?
Amen! I applaud. The bifold door look, which I remember recently coming across somewhere described as “must-have”, really is rather suspect. I suppose I do understand why people add these doors to their kitchen and sitting room extensions: their individual panels can be gathered into a bundle, allowing for a seemingly total blurring of barriers between indoors and out.
Yet, when I see a handsome house with a sad, flat-roofed box stuck on its back complete with bog standard black bifold doors, I just think: airport hangar, municipal office. Not only do these extensions usually appear ugly and thoughtless, they’re also really boring. Can we not be a little bit more imaginative?
The dealer and decorator Jack Laver Brister (@Tradchap on Instagram) recently posted an image of his newly finished extension, which expands off his kitchen and houses a snug and dining area. In his post, Laver Brister says he wanted something that obviously looked like a later addition to his period house, but also felt in harmony with it. The extension is clad in painted timber boards and, marvellously, is topped with a tin roof. Simple half-glazed doors and large sash windows only add to the charming atmosphere. I love this idea for a kitchen extension.
Here’s the thing: I don’t understand the need to have no distinction whatsoever between house and garden. On a glorious summer’s day it is blissful to feel a summer breeze wafting through one’s rooms and, naturally, I love all that nipping between kitchen and garden, drink in one hand, freshly cut flowers in the other.
I’m not insane — obviously I want to enjoy my garden as much as possible when the weather is good. Still, I’d much rather go down this Tradchap route and build a room with very large windows and that, crucially, also looks pretty from the garden.
If you have a garden you’re proud of, yes, bifold doors will allow you to see it in panorama mode. But when you’re actually in the garden, the typical flat-roofed extension with these doors looks so terribly awful.
Wouldn’t you prefer to see a tin roof, painted timber and sash windows?
Besides, a garden seen through a beautifully made window is an elegant thing to be appreciated. Often when I’m visiting gardens, I take photographs through windows with old panes and interesting frames if I come across them — these always end up being my favourite views, more than the regular ones.
Where else to look for inspiration? I very much like how homeware designer Matilda Goad’s London sitting room spills out into her charming garden. No bifolds here, instead three pairs of elegant half-glazed doors that when flung open give the much-desired effect of boundary breakdown just as well as the dreaded bifolds.
What I love about Goad’s approach is how she has softened the overall look: the doors are painted a muted sage and are half hidden by pale pink curtains; bamboo blinds up top are neatly folded. The soft colours echo what’s going on beyond the doors and in the garden — it all feels very natural and calming.
What would I do? Well, I am enjoying in your question the word “ornate”. I’d go for gothic, perhaps. I might plan an orangery . . . Or something along the lines of the glasshouse at Rousham, which is always a heart-stopping scene in summer, surrounded as it always is by shrubs and a carpet of green. I see castellations, I see finials . . . (Investigate Vale Garden Houses if these ideas tickle your fancy.)
For all my decorative dreams, though, I have to say that I certainly don’t dislike all contemporary extensions. In fact I rather love the idea of a kitchen housed in something very modern — all big glass panels and very thin dark grey steel. I would soften it all with plants in old terracotta pots, perhaps a reclaimed floor.
Because, of course, contemporary can be elegant. Would you use this word to describe chunky bifold doors, however? I don’t think so. I’m glad you’ve already decided that you’d like to plan an exciting kitchen extension: no persuading on my part! Do something unexpected. Good luck!
If you have a question for Luke about design and stylish living, email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram @lukeedwardhall
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