Open-Plan Kitchen Extension in Cambridge

The brief

This Victorian semi in Cambridge had good bones but a ground floor that hadn't kept up with how modern families live. The kitchen was a narrow galley - functional but isolated, tucked away from the rest of the house. The living spaces were chopped up by structural walls that made the whole floor feel smaller and darker than it needed to be. The heating system was ageing, the house was losing energy through poorly insulated walls, and the owners wanted a home that worked better for them on every level.

They came to Simon with a clear ambition: open the whole thing up, bring the kitchen into the heart of the home, and use the opportunity to future-proof the house's energy performance at the same time.

The challenge

Removing structural walls in a Victorian property isn't simply a matter of knocking things down. Each wall had to be carefully assessed, structural calculations done, and steel beams specified and installed to carry the loads safely. The ground floor was essentially rebuilt around a new structural frame - complex work that required tight coordination between Simon's team, the structural engineer, and building control.

At the same time, the team was fitting external insulation to the building envelope and replacing the old heating system entirely - installing a heat pump and running underfloor heating across the full ground floor. Managing all of that as a single integrated project, rather than a series of disconnected trades, was key to keeping the programme and budget on track.

The result

The transformation is significant. What was a series of separate, enclosed rooms is now a single flowing space - kitchen, dining area and living room connected without interruption, flooded with light from roof skylights and a run of windows that previously looked out onto a closed-in space.

The teal shaker kitchen with its white quartz island sits at the centre of the ground floor rather than hidden at the back. Herringbone oak flooring runs throughout, unifying the space visually. The underfloor heating means no radiators interrupting the walls, and the heat pump means the house is now running on a fraction of the energy it once consumed.

It's a home that looks completely different from the outside in - and performs differently too.

Project snapshot

• Structural wall removal across the ground floor
• Bespoke open-plan kitchen diner with island
• Roof skylights and new glazing
• Herringbone engineered oak flooring throughout
• External wall insulation
• Air source heat pump installation
• Underfloor heating across the full ground floor
• Full redecoration

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