Can’t extend? How to add a mezzanine to your home and create extra space

So you want more space, but you don’t have a huge garden to build in and you don’t have the money to dig under your house. What can you do?

If you’re tall in height but small in floor space, there’s a way to add another room without adding a single square foot to the size of your home: a mezzanine floor.

Mezzanines – essentially large balconies in rooms with high enough ceilings – are imaginative ways to create cool sitting areas or even small bedrooms.

They often appear in houses converted from other buildings, such as schools or barns, but can also be placed in Victorian homes.

Normally you need at least 4 meters head height.

Aim high

Kate Ellison and her husband, Robert, recently added a mezzanine floor to the kitchen in their Victorian home in Stoke Newington, north London, as part of a renovation designed by Emil Eve Architects.

The mezzanine level floats above the cabinets and is lined with bookcases, so the couple’s three children can sit and read or chat with their parents while the adults prepare meals.

‘It creates such an interesting, modern space,’ says Kate. ‘It really gives the house that wow factor.’

Specialist company Neville Johnson is a good option for creating home library spaces, and it offers plenty of styles that can be customized.

When adding a mezzanine, the maximum size is usually half the space below, otherwise natural light will not flow down.

If you plan to use one as a bedroom, folding or sliding screens provide privacy.

Ikea’s Tolkning room divider is made from natural fibers and creates the feeling of a room within a room (£99).

Or for a more colorful option, opt for Wayfair’s foldable room divider with Havell panels and printed vintage motifs (€172.99).

Light and bright

Open mezzanine areas create flow in the house, while separate levels ensure that different spaces retain their own character and functionality.

Brighton-based company Life Size Architecture was hired to unite a house with the basement flat below.

The challenge was to bring natural light down into the underground space.

By creating mezzanines, the light came down and created a few corners where you could sit and read, or look out at the garden through a window.

Rob Beer, director of Life Size, says: ‘Originally the house was split into two buildings: the owners lived in the upstairs house and rented out the downstairs apartment.

“So they actually had plenty of living space upstairs and we thought if we put the two properties together we could get rid of one or two rooms and create two mezzanines that would provide light downstairs.”

They are made with custom joinery and ironwork. One is a music room, the other is a kind of upstairs extension of the kitchen.

Complete overhaul

Architect Ana Sutherland of the firm Francisco Sutherland was commissioned to redesign a three-storey flat in the Bunyan Court building, built in 1972 on London’s Barbican Estate – a famous example of brutalist architecture.

To contrast with the concrete building, Sutherland designed an oak internal structure on a mezzanine level with a bedroom and shower room.

Shutters made of the same oak wood open the bedroom to the room below or close it for privacy.

“The flat had a double-height space with a vaulted ceiling, so we were able to add an extra floor, but the client wanted to keep some of the double-height space,” she explains.

‘We created an upper floor that only takes up half the space, leaving the room below still part of the double height. You can still look at that beautiful vaulted ceiling.”

According to her, the disadvantage of mezzanines is that they are always connected to the room below, so you sacrifice privacy.

‘They function best as secondary spaces, such as studies, children’s play areas or sleeping platforms.’