Opening a kitchen into a dining or living space is almost always the headline request in a rear extension, but it changes what the room needs structurally — a steel beam sized correctly for the new span, and often a change to how heating is zoned, since one large space heats differently to several small rooms.
Acoustics and smells are the two things people underestimate. A cooker hood with proper external extraction, rather than a recirculating filter, makes a bigger difference to an open-plan space than most people expect, and it’s worth specifying at the design stage rather than retrofitting.
