Tonal — Wrap-Around Extension, Atherstone

Tonal - Single Storey Wrap Around Extension within a Conservation Area

An early 1900s terrace, subdivided until it barely functioned. Buff brick, quiet restraint, and a ground floor given back its flow.

Tonal

Single Storey Wrap Around Extension within a Conservation Area

Atherstone, North Warwickshire

The clients had bought a house with good bones - an early 1900s period property with character and potential. What they hadn't fully reckoned with was how restricted the ground floor had become over the decades. Previous owners had carved it up, subdividing spaces and closing off circulation until the plan barely functioned. They came to Studio Context with a modest budget and a clear ask: make the ground floor work.

Single-storey wrap-around extension in buff brick, Conservation Area Atherstone — Tonal by Studio Context

The Brief

Wrap the rear, open the plan, and give the house back its sense of connection and allow the spaces to breathe. A single storey extension that would do a lot of quiet work.

Context’s Approach

The extension wraps around the existing rear footprint, unlocking circulation routes that the subdivided plan had closed off and creating a generous open plan space where the ground floor had previously felt disconnected and pinched. Low ceiling heights in the existing house were a constraint - rather than fight them, the design leans in. A sculpted organic bulkhead defines the boundary between old and new, framing the transition into the extension's higher ceiling volume and turning a limitation into a moment of spatial arrival.

Materially, the project is disciplined and deliberate. Buff brick throughout - exterior, extension, and landscaping - keeps the whole composition reading as one resolved form. Against the white render of the existing house, the brick doesn't contrast aggressively; it simply shifts in tone. Clean, japandi-influenced interiors inside. Minimal sightline glazing to the garden. Nothing superfluous.

The Outcome

A low budget project that demonstrates what restraint and material consistency can achieve. The house flows again. The extension feels considered rather than added. And a building that had been slowly diminished over decades has a statement ground floor layout.