What do you use your conservatory for?

[MrSoft]

I've never had one before and trying to work out what to put where in my new house

It has a kitchen diner with the conservatory off of the dining section

I was going to turn the conservatory into a small sitting room/playroom for the kids but thinking about it I could also make it a dining room as I could fit a much larger table into it than I could in the kitchen diner

If I did that what would I use the walk through/dining section of the kitchen for?

I'm so confused!

Ours is off the kitchen and I hate it with an absolute passion. It faces south, so is boiling hot whenever the sun shines, but freezing at night and in the winter. It has our fridge and recycling bins and that's it.

We'll be pulling it down in a couple of months and replacing it with a brick structure on the same footprint that will flow more naturally into the kitchen behind it, with doors onto the garden. Can't wait!

We have a crap cheaply conservatory but we rent so can’t do much about it:
Ours houses all the kids toys Lego etc, has a wardrobe full of board games and also houses the guinea pigs.
It’s north facing so doesn’t get too hot in the summer as long as we leave all the windows open a fraction (and kind of locked so can’t be opens from the outside) and not it’s cold they have a radiator near the cage that keeps them warm plus snuggle houses etc.

@mazza all in it cost £11k for the roof plastering and electrics

It’s 25 sq metres so a decent size

I've found with ours if we leave the door between it and the house open it stays warm enough to be usable all year around - I've been sat in there with snow on the ground and roof quite happily before. So basically it serves as a living room extension at the moment. Long term I want to make it into a woman-cave/office/craft room for me but that will be when the kids are older and all the plastic people get eviction notices served.

@mazzamoo123

The roof company took care of that, they dug down to the side of the base, they also sorted out the building regulations with the council and it shows up now on searches on the council website.

@EdisonLightBulb yes - unfortunately I know our foundations aren’t deep enough so we have to either tear it down and start again or make do with what we’ve got by insulating it from the inside... Adding a lightweight roof sounds too expensive for us having seen figures on other posts above!

Ours is a horrid 80s all glass conservatory. The walls and roof are single glazed and as you can imagine it's boiling hot in Summer and freezing in Winter!
We did use it as a playroom when the DDs were small. We had the hottest glass covered with reflective film, so it was usable.
But we've been here now almost 20 years and the roof is leaking and we can't use it. Have buckets all over the place.
Thought about replacing it with something half sized, but all the quotes are over 12K!
It is a massive conservatory, but looks like a lean to greenhouse.
I may rip down the reflective film and use it as such!

Mine is also freezing in winter/boiling in summer. It houses my books, although they're suffering from the sun a fair bit :(

Am interested in people who've gotten theirs to be more usable and it not cost a fortune (ours does probably need a new roof though...).
It's not massive and probably cheaply done- the house came with it. Just not sure if it's worth the money to make more usable yet, as we have other projects to do around the house first, but if something temporary can be done for now to help , thatwould be good!

We have a huge conservatory which we built onto the house 20 years ago. I love, love, love it. It's like sitting in the garden but warm!

It's used from March to October all the time. November to February it isn't warm enough for everyday use and I just close it off unless we have visitors when I heat it.
It's big enough for a table and chairs at one end and sofas at the other and we virtually live in there even though we have plenty of space elsewhere. We eat in there most of the time though still use the dining room if it's a bit chilly.
I never find it too hot even in a heatwave.