subject: Why Garden Rooms Are Growing In Popularity As The Third Option [print this page] Why Garden Rooms Are Growing In Popularity As The Third Option
When it comes to extensions you want to make the right choice. Whether you are looking to extend your home with an extra room, or bring the outside in. Some people prefer the latter, and wish to embrace the tranquillity and beauty of their gardens. Conservatories and orangeries tend to be more garden focused, with more windows and light. However, there is a third choice, garden rooms. One would think there is not a lot of difference between the three, more of the same and little of the new. However one would be wrong. A garden room does offer an alternative edge.
All three options are keenly linked to luxury and leisure, but each retains distinctive features that customers look for when coming to a decision. For instance, when it comes to conservatories, UK home owners still find the old Victorian and Edwardian designs appealing. More modern styles are also popular, with the growth in demand for orangeries. All three extension choices are made from hardwood timber oak and all offer style, elegance and luxury. The homeowners can feel either extension choice will reflect well on their status. However, this third option does have something different to offer in design and practicality.
While a conservatory and orangery are both extensions that were originally for the purpose of housing plants, a garden room has always served as a sun filled additional living space, that is actually part of the home. The structure generally has a completely solid roof, though it may have a limited glazed area, perhaps in the form of one or more large skylights. However, garden rooms can be made bespoke. Therefore, offering the customer choice of how many windows and light they would like to have come through.
Its walls can vary in construction, with full length glazing amongst the most common, though windows supported by low brick walls are also popular, while its interior has all of the hallmarks of a proper, enclosed room. For example, timber flooring, dark and polished to a high shine, are a common alternative to tiles, and when set against a garden view is very impressive.
In many respects, this type of extension looks and feels like a part of the main house, with brick work often adorning its outer walls to make the connection to the main buildings a seamless, almost undetectable, one. The red brick exterior of many urban homes is easily and expertly mimicked, while country homes with painted concrete, or whitewashed walls can also be easily copied.
It is true that the dividing lines between all three extension options have been fudged, though they each retain a certain distinction in their appearance. However, just as its alternatives are being built with air dried oak frames, these rooms are also utilising the natural beauty and stability of hardwood frames.
Of course, the same high manufacturing standards must be maintained since the structure itself will have to support a fully tiled or slated roof, but with stability assured, the added attraction is the warmth that wood can provide. The oak frames that are used are manufactured off site, and erected quickly and easily by professionals, making the process of construction a quick one. These companies often offer the complete service, from design consultation and planning to constructing the roof and applying the tiles.
They are normally used for the same purpose as its alternatives. They are designed to offer a getaway from the stresses of life, to provide some peace and quiet, a place to relax and enjoy a garden and the sunshine. However, they are also used as activity rooms, with home gymnasiums, family play rooms and even swimming pools also found under their roofs.
And because of its solid structure, in bad weather the sense of being sheltered at home is stronger. In fact, the level of exposure to the elements can often be controlled more effectively by the home owner, with blinds serving to reduce heat and to effectively shut out extreme bad weather, in the case of storms, for example.
It might be argued that with the range of possibilities offered by modern designs in orangeries and conservatories uk home owners should already be fully satisfied. True, each provides a similar sense of escape, but garden rooms are a marriage of escape, brightness, fresh openness and a distinct feeling of being at home.
For some, that is the key feeling that is looked for in a garden extension. For all their attributes, the alternatives, whether they be a traditional conservatory and a hardwood orangery, do not quite satisfy in the same way, leaving a niche that is now being filled.
