Here at Glass Design and Build London, many of our most creative and satisfying projects are home extensions – enhancing an existing property with extra living space which makes all the difference.
And the demand for extensions is growing all the time. Recent hikes in the top rates of Stamp Duty are part of the reason for a rise in the trend for staying put and extending rather than moving to somewhere bigger. Stamp Duty on a £1M property is now £43,750 and an eye-watering £153,750 on a property worth £2M. Instead of handing over that money to the Exchequer, we can help you to save that money and use it instead to add value to your current home.
The word “extension” may have less than favourable connotations in your mind, as a result of a legacy of poorly designed and planned home extensions being grafted onto properties right through the latter part of the twentieth century. But since the turn of this century, that’s all changed. And the biggest factor in creating an improvement in the design and appearance of extensions? Glass.
With huge advancements in glass technology over the last few years, glass is THE key creative component in extension design. It brings light, flexibility and a wider set of direction options for your extension. So, long gone are the days when all an extension meant was an ugly box tacked onto the back, or a shoddy conservatory that was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. From the air, we commonly comment that these resemble nothing more than blister on the side of a house.
So, forget all that – instead, we at Glass Design and Build London can create a home extension which becomes a perfect enhancement to your home, complementing it and solving any space limitations you may have currently.
Our creative use of glass allows us to make great extensions, which can be up, out or down into the basement, without sacrificing access to light.
Clearly this is the extension direction posing the biggest challenge in finding and harnessing light. However, through the clever use of rooflights, glass stairs and lightwells, we can create living spaces which maximise the penetration of light and, if anything, in more intriguing and attractive angles than ground-floor spaces. London, with such a premium on land space, is of course at the centre of the growth in basement extensions. However, it’s vital that your basement extension is safe and in sympathy with the rest of the property and its surroundings. With our experience of working on these, we can provide expert advice on all aspects of basement extensions.
Here, it’s all about the view and how to frame it. Rooflights leading your eye up to the sky; and glass walls and doors guiding you out to glass balconies and terraces. This is light and vista to the max. 180, 240 and even 360-views could be the ambition of the design– you set us the challenge and we’ll show you our creative solutions!
Often the simplest and most common direction to go with a property extension, but one that need not compromise on originality or inspiration. Whether it’s a kitchen extension or a way to create a more satisfying transition space between the inside and outside, here at Glass Design and Build London, we have a track-record of creating extensions which don’t just add to your square footage, but genuinely enhance the WHOLE of your property, making it into a truly desirable home.
Can you ever have too much space in a kitchen? By extending your kitchen, much like the culinary experience itself, you can start from scratch, choosing, preparing and putting together the ingredients for your ideal kitchen space.
Our kitchen extensions incorporate all the tech needed to make food preparation and storage efficient and enjoyable, while at the same time being a living space which can be shifted in mood and ambiance to suit the time of day.
Here at Glass Design and Build London we are expert at incorporating the subtle and clever use of light, lighting and sound systems into your kitchen. This means that, whatever the mealtime or the occasion, from breakfast through to late-night drinks, your kitchen can be the place where everyone wants to be.
We give you the choice – whether it’s a kitchen extension or a wider purpose extension, our design team can work with you to create the extension which best blends with your existing property and which fits your requirements for privacy, light and connection with your outdoor space. This could be a more ‘conventional’ kitchen extension like this:
Or it could be a structure which is upwards of 90% glass in its visible structure:
We can incorporate a dazzling array of glazing techniques into our all-glass extensions. These include solar control glass; acoustic dampening glass; photochromic glass (which changes transparency according to the light intensity, just like a cool pair of sunglasses); and high-strength structural glass. AND the very latest addition to our portfolio, which we have developed exclusively in conjunction with our glass manufacturer partners – the LED glass lighting system, creating the ultimate enhancement to your project. For example, using this system, we can guide light through glass beams. Contact us for more info.
And, for that all-important entry-point to your outside space, we offer every type of glass door system: large sliding glass doors; automatic doors; single and multi-sliding doors; pivot doors; oversized doors; and bi-parting door systems for a corner-based opening, see the picture below. On our site, you can see our full range of door systems.
We can incorporate moving glass wall systems, using extra-extra clear glass, providing floor-to-ceiling glazing, so that as much as 99% of the visible structure is made from structural glass.
Deciding on the extension which is going to work for you and your home can be a complex process. With many years’ experience in producing dozens of impressive extensions for clients right across the UK, here at Glass Design and Build London, we can guide you through every step, from the (sometimes) minefield of planning approval, through to design, specification, build, landscaping and completion on time and on budget of your perfect extension.
