I love conservatories! They are the perfect outdoor indoor hybrid. Put together with some some solar garden lights and you have the ultimate space to enjoy balmy summer nights. Over the last twenty years conservatories have become the most popular form of home improvement. It is possible to have an extra room in the house or a great single storey extension with a lot less hassle in terms of building and planning regulations. No wonder practically all new build houses now have conservatories as standard.
To get the best out of a new conservatory, make sure you know what you want it for. Will it be a living room, a dining room or even a kitchen? Will it be an extension to an existing room or separate. If you want a separate conservatory as a dining room for instance, you need to plan for a large enough space to fit a dining table and 6 – 8 chairs with space to pull them away from the table in order to sit down . If it’s a living room you are after, then a few chairs and a coffee table will need a lot less space.
Make sure that you get the internal dimensions of the room in your head. The footprint of a conservatory is misleading and will look a lot larger that the actual living area. Mark out the internal walls on the ground if you are a visual person. Then you can tell how much space you have to place furniture and how much space you have to move about in.
The size of your house will to some extent decide the size of your conservatory. A conservatory that is the same size as your house will look odd to say the least. As a rule of thumb, a third of your homes original footprint is a reasonable balance. One half is going to feel pretty large. Plus, don’t forget the garden. Take too much off of the garden and you are losing a valuable outside space. This will not help when you are looking to sell your property.
If you don’t have much outside space, a lean to conservatory running along the back wall of the house will give a lovely open feel to your living area. Do be prepared to knock through otherwise you run the risk of turning your lovely new conservatory into an expensive storage area. If you have a ground floor bedroom a conservatory can transform it into a tranquil space in which your favourite piece of bedroom furniture can be placed for maximum effect.