Thinking of a Side-Return Kitchen Extension on a Victorian House in Hertfordshire? Here’s What 6 Months of Building Looks Like..

Planning a side-return kitchen extension on a Victorian house in Hertfordshire? We're six months into doing exactly that — and documenting every stage of the renovation, from digging the foundations and installing steels to windows, plasterboard, painting and, finally, the kitchen taking shape.

 

 

Our Victorian House Extension: Week by Week

This is our week-by-week account of a Victorian side-return kitchen extension in Hertfordshire, documenting six months of building work — from foundations and structural steels to the finished family kitchen — and how Holland Street's SENSE Method is shaping the interior design of our home.

A side-return extension can look deceptively simple on paper. A little more space, more light, a new kitchen — what could possibly go wrong?

Six months into our own Victorian house renovation in Hertfordshire, we can tell you: quite a lot happens before you get anywhere near the finished kitchen.

At Holland Street, we are interested in how design shapes the way we feel and live. Our SENSE Method™ is the foundation of our approach to fashion and interiors — beginning with the question: How do you want to feel in a space? For us, this renovation has been a chance to put that philosophy into practice, while navigating the very real demands of family life, building work and a house that is being transformed around us.

 

Week by week: from foundations to family kitchen

The photographs document our journey week by week — beginning with digging out the side return and laying the foundations, before the building started to take shape.

We moved through block and beam flooring, cement blocks and new walls, structural steels and windows, gradually turning what was once an outside passage into a proper extension.

Then came the less glamorous — but very real — part of renovation: temporary kitchens, plasterboard, dust, disruption and painting.

Six months in, we are finally at the exciting stage where we can begin to imagine the finished room.

 

Designing a kitchen around how we want to live

The new space has been inspired in part by Gail's Bakery in St Albans — warm, welcoming, practical and designed for people to gather. At the heart of the room will be a beautifully designed deVOL kitchen in Pantry Blue, creating a sense of depth and character within the Victorian house.

And because this is a Holland Street project, the emotional layer is just as important as the practical one.

In the loo, we are using our SENSE Method Cocooning Earth Flight print wallpaper — a pattern chosen not simply because it looks beautiful, but because of how we want the room to feel.

This is the idea behind SENSE: designing around emotion, not just aesthetics.

 

 

 

Follow our week-by-week Hertfordshire renovation journey — from foundations and steels to the finished Holland Street family home. Stay tuned for PART 2 of the interior reveal, including flooring, wall surfaces and wallpapers, plus furniture and more.

www.hollandstreet.co