Fallen out of love with your home? It could be down to a lack of space

Wondering why your home doesn’t feel special anymore? Dreaming of large, bright, open-plan rooms and additional space? See how these Westbury clients transformed their properties with a garden room or orangery…

When you first move into your home, your new residence takes on an almost magical quality. You invite your friends over for tours, and you create Pinterest boards for home décor inspiration. You find yourself spending a considerable amount of time indoors, enjoying and appreciating your slightly unfamiliar yet marvellous living space. But over time, things change, and the honeymoon period ends. You spend less time at home, you stop caring about maintenance tasks, and you start noticing features that are incompatible with you and your family. You may well be falling out of love with your property, but this might not be a bad thing. The reality is that our needs change as our lives move on. We wonder if we’d be happier in a different house, but fortunately, these issues are fixable. 

One of the most effective ways to change the character and functionality of your home is to add additional space with an extension. While there are many designs to choose from, a glazed structure such as an orangery or garden room can create a, bright, light-filled room that you will adore for years to come. Knocking through walls and opening doorways will instantly create a vast, open-plan room while changing the flow of your interiors, and high rooflines also help to create a sense of increased space. Open-plan areas encourage you to use your space in different ways. You’ll notice that your family interacts with greater connection, and hosting for friends and family becomes more leisurely. Whether you live in a period property or a London townhouse, an orangery or garden room can remind you of all the reasons why you chose to live there in the first place. 

Ground-floor basement extension in London

Just because you have a smaller space to work with, doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from an extension! This lower-ground basement of a London townhouse once housed an uninspiring, dull kitchen. The owners were keen to add additional space to make better use of the outside patio, which they rarely used. 

Carefully considering the property’s architecture, we designed and installed this classic orangery that brings a new fluidity to the interiors. We extended the living area and created a new, open-plan kitchen and living space. Light-coloured, limestone flooring helps to enhance the connection between the patio and the house, making everything feel like one large indoor/outdoor area.

Whole ground-floor extension

What a phenomenal kitchen and dining room extension this is! This orangery stretches across the whole length of the rear ground floor, creating an ample open-plan space that beautifully merges with the main house. The clients gained so much extra room, they’ve been able to include a modern and multi-functional a lounge and utility room with wine storage. The new dining area is large enough to entertain large groups, and yet it still feels cosy and welcoming when the house is quiet. 

All good things come in halves

Here’s another excellent example of how an orangery can transform your home, even if you are working within limited parameters. In the past, the homeowners expanded their home with a 6m extension. However, they wanted to add more space and felt that a new, glazed orangery was the ideal solution. The property is located on a green belt in Kent, so they were limited in terms of options. Under permitted development, they could only extend a further 2m. 

To accommodate, we designed a half-sized roof lantern for a room measuring  7.3m x 2m, that we installed onto the rear of the kitchen. The half roof lantern gives the illusion that the extension is one complete orangery, with an abundance of natural light streaming in through the glazing. Although we only added a small amount of space, the new extension completely transformed the interiors, producing a stylish and modern family room.  

A garden room for a home-run cooking school

For this project, we designed a space that could be used as a welcoming family kitchen, and as a classroom for the client’s cookery school, The Green Apron. Initially, this period residence consisted of a basement kitchen with plenty of original features, like the old wine cellars. Although the kitchen offered lots of storage options, it lacked the space required for the owners to host cookery classes. On seeing the property, our designers suggested tearing down the unused conservatory at the rear and replacing it with a garden room extension. 

The new garden room would considerably increase the footprint of the house, so we took care of the planning application process on behalf of the client. With a fully tiled roof, the garden room needed to blend in with the main property, so the fascia and soffit matched that of the main building in both design and colour. We included blue beams and circular design in the glazed gable, to mirror the woodwork and the circular window seen in the main house, above the new extension.

A glazed extension, such as an orangery or garden room, will quickly become the heart of any home and will transform your relationship with your property. Contact us today to discuss your project in more detail or book an appointment to visit one of our showrooms.