Where to source wood French doors and UPC roof light?

[rak5a]

We're doing a kitchen extension and need to source some nice French doors with sidelights (plus sash window) as well as a roof light/lantern. My builder is confusing me as he seems to say we need to source (which I understand as obv we need to choose style( but he is being very unhelpful in steering us to sources. I have Googled until I'm cross-eyed but just don't know who/what to trust. We want good quality but need to keep an eye on budget. We have about £2500 for a 2x3m rooflight and I guess about £2k for French doors and one sash window. Please help! Any suggestions or recommendations desperately appreciated!

puh-lease! anyone with any advice/suggestions?!

Hi - I would use a local carpentry shop - I chose one close to where I live for windows and a roof light and they were so much better quality and reasonably priced ... Yell.com cabinet makers or carpenters

Hi rak5a, I am very interested in hearing about your experience as we're going through a similar kitchen extension job. Who did you use in the end? What product and size did you get?

We're looking for bifolding sliding doors 4m x 2.2m + 1 rooflight 1.9m x 2m.

Thanks!

Hi Azrael,
We ended up getting a rooflight from a company called Lumina Design which is easily found on Google. It was pretty economical - about £1250 for a 3.5 x 1.5m rooflight. We then paid another £300 for an electric roof vent. In retrospect I would just have gotten an openable vent (not electric - the kind you open with a pole) because at this level the electric motor is basically just an add-on that looks a bit ugly bolted onto the window with a cord hanging out.
We ended up having the French doors made by a carpenter and we're very happy with them. They are double glazed, painted hardwood and over 2m wide. They were £2200 all in, painted and fitted.
You can see pics of it all on my profile if you want a little look!

Thanks for this rak5a.

May I ask you: did you get a lantern rooflight (ie pyramid-shaped) or a flat rooflight? Lumina Design seems to sell mostly lanterns. Our extension will be very contemporary so we thought that we should go for a rooflight rather than a lantern, but we might be wrong?

We also feared that a lantern would show a lot of metal instead of just glass which put us off so far... not sure if my fear is justified. Would love to hear your thought process on this.

3.5m x 1.5m is big: nice!

I think you may have de-activated your profile because I can't click on it to see your pictures (whereas I can click on some other profiles). Just FYI.

Thanks again!

Sorry - we had a roof lantern (the terminology was always mixing me up!). Our kitchen (if you could see the pics!) has been done quite in keeping with the period of the house so we didn't want it too modern looking. Although our roof lantern is upvc and has the bars, it looks "right" with the rest of the design. We did come across some roof lanterns that had almost invisible framing that would be great in a more modern extension. Reflex Glass was the site that had some fairly economical ones (they also do flat rooflights).

My profile isn't deactivated but I think I wasn't properly updated. I might have fixed it so perhaps try to look again!

Ah fabulous I see your profile pic now! Will pour over and keep researching the roof lanterns, they do look nice. Thanks!

Another vote for local carpenter - we got bespoke wooden folding sliding doors made and fitted for £1000 less than the hideous uPVC equivalents.