At the end of the kitchen, a small white dining table sits almost against the garden doors. Beyond it, the decking continues towards a narrow path. The view is unusually long for such a confined room: your eye travels past the worktops, through the glass and out among the plants. There is very little spare width, but plenty to look towards.

The kitchen and dining area look directly into the garden. Architecture: William Tozer Associates. Photography: Lukasz Wielkoszynski.

This is Sandie Tozer’s former shipbuilder’s cottage in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. William Tozer Associates records an internal width of just 2.2m. Before the renovation, small rooms were divided across three levels, with little connection to one another or the garden.

The architects’ response was to work with the length and the changing levels. Senior associate Tom Shelswell helped devise a plan that connected the house to its garden and gave its separate floors clearer purposes. The former basement hair salon became bedroom accommodation, while the top floor provided Sandie’s own bedroom and bathroom. The main living floor could then make the most of the route between them.

Look again at the kitchen photograph. The pale timber fronts and white worktops keep the two sides quiet, while the dark ovens are gathered into one tall bank. There is no island interrupting the middle. The little round table occupies the end of the room, where the cabinets finish, rather than competing with the working passage.

The cabinetry stops short of the table, giving the dining space a clear identity without another wall. For a narrow home, that matters: a room can contain more than one activity without each needing a separate enclosure.

From the garden, the glazed end reveals the depth of the house. Architecture: William Tozer Associates. Photography: Lukasz Wielkoszynski.

The garden elevation makes the arrangement particularly clear. Timber cladding surrounds a large glazed opening, with the dining chairs visible immediately behind it and the house receding beyond. The extension has a definite outside edge, yet the view through the room does not stop there. The garden becomes part of what you see while sitting at the table.

Light also comes from above and from glazing high along the sides. That is a useful distinction from simply ordering larger rear doors: the far end of a long room and the middle of it need separate consideration. Here, the high openings draw attention upwards as well as forwards. The design gives the eye several distances to travel.

From the kitchen, you can see how the different heights fit together. Openings reveal the living area and lower floor, with full-height doors that allow routes to read as part of adjoining spaces when open.

Steps connect the kitchen to the living floor and lower-ground level. Architecture: William Tozer Associates. Photography: Lukasz Wielkoszynski.

The view back from the kitchen shows two journeys at once: timber steps rise towards the living floor, while a lower opening leads down. A glass balustrade protects the change of level without hiding the room beyond. White walls and shelving carry across the different heights, so the routes remain legible within one view.

Above, exposed ceiling structure and rooflights make more of the available volume. The bedroom can remain simply furnished while its ceiling does some of the visual work. It is a different response from the long kitchen, but it addresses the same constraint: there is more to the experience of a small room than the distance between its side walls.

The upper bedroom uses height and a restrained arrangement of furniture. Architecture: William Tozer Associates. Photography: Lukasz Wielkoszynski.

Before planning changes to another narrow terrace, map the routes and views already there. Where does a door cut off daylight? Does a necessary passage also contribute something to the room? Which activity would benefit most from the garden outlook? These are design questions to explore with an architect, not instructions to remove walls. Structural alterations, basement accommodation and glazing need professional assessment and the relevant permissions.

This was substantial renovation work, begun in November 2021, not a cosmetic weekend improvement. Its appeal lies in the precision of the result. Return to the small dining table: it has neither a wide room nor a grand position, yet it looks through glass into a garden. In a house this narrow, that is a very good place to sit.