Solution
The house dates from the early stages of the redevelopment of the London docks in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The idea seems to have been to try to give the houses a bit of character rather than to build endless identical homes in the large development, however the result now looks like a curious collection of mix-and-match elements. This one had a later conservatory the owners didn’t like and a side passage with no obvious purpose, some of which was taken up by a lean-to.
Our plan was to demolish the conservatory and extend the house into the side passage instead. A trio of long skylight sections on the new side extension roof would bring more light into the now open plan ground-floor, complete with a large kitchen area. The awkward front door at 90 degrees to the street is replaced by one facing the road, and opening into an entrance hall area. This change also allowed us to make the ground-floor shower room much bigger and more comfortable to use. No more greeting guests by the entrance to the loo! And the currently pointless front section of the side passage becomes a properly landscaped front patio.
A pre-application meeting with the council allowed us to make some small changes to keep the design in line with policies, but largely the planning department was happy with what we were doing, and followed up by granting planning permission when we submitted our application.
When you factor in the unloved conservatory we were removing, our changes only amounted to a net addition of 2sqm. But the effect on the way the house feels was truly dramatic. Not much bigger, but emphatically better.