Ideas to jazz up a conservatory?

[FanGirlX]

I'm just wondering what you'd do with a dated conservatory? New flooring, hopefully panels on at least part of the roof.

What do people use conservatory for? I have a dining room. Thinking perhaps office / reading room. I might put my exercise bike in there and leave space for me to do yoga too.

Growing tomatoes in the summer!

New wooded floor and then a lovely big Berber style rug.

Loads of plants on the windows.

L shaped sofas with lots of cushions and throws

Coffee table in the middle.

Basically a relaxing room for reading!

Following with interest as we are having one installed at the moment - it’s quite a modern one and we are going to use it as a dining room but interested to see ideas and photos of others’!

I have one. And one of the things that I wouldn’t have in my next house ( we are in the middle of moving ) was a conservatory.
Always cold as you are not allowed to continue the heating from the main part of the house into it. No matter what heater I put in there.
In the summer it was always hot.

You can change the roof but u have to be careful about weight. And no matter what I tried I always had mould on the walls.

I have an old table and chairs in mine as I didn’t want anything special in there as it was just damp all the time.

Sorry. This all sound so pessimistic. I have had them in my last two houses and I vowed never again.

I suppose a gym place would be good as then u wouldn’t want it to be hot when exercising.

Oh dear
I hope we are installing ours with the right kit! It’s having underfloor heating and also air conditioning as we want to be able to use it all year round!

@Paranoidandroidmarvin. That's interesting. Are you saying you're not legally allowed to have central heating from your existing house system in there? Is that an environmental law? Or just that your boiler wouldn't be able to cope with it? Thanks.

As far as I’m aware it’s the law as that makes it a room. On our papers we had to send back while selling the house we had to tick that the heating wasn’t part of the house heating.your also not supposed to change the doors either.

Ours our sliding doors. And they were not allowed to be changed to normal ones.

I’m sure by adding it into the central heating ur making it a room that is part of the house and then building regulations apply.

Also something about a certain percentage has to be windows or it is classed as a room.

Not sure about underground heating. I assume if it is not joined to the rest of the house it would be okay? I’m not sure. I know there are fairly strict rules around what sizes and what u can do to change them.

This is amazing 😁.

Get the roof replaced with insulated conservatory roof tiles. They look like normal tiles but are much lighter. Thermal blinds on windows to control heat and light in summer and keep warm in winter.

New floor, damp resist furniture eg that plastic woven stuff, chuck a load of cushions and blankets on when you go in there.

@Paranoidandroidmarvin. I guess it's to do with the percentage you're allowed to add onto your house before you need planning permission. I would never have thought of that, though, so it's good to know. Thank you so much for getting back to me.

My understanding is conservatories don’t need the same building regs as regular rooms do. Mostly this is for insulation requirements / thermal efficiency. If you run central heating into them then they stop being designated as conservatories, so need to meet the building standards of thermal efficiency of a regular room.
The door to them needs to meet regs for thermal efficiency of external doors.

If it’s over 20 years old then building regs irrelevant anyway.

We have a breakfast table and a small sofa in ours.

We tend to use it for pre-dinner drinks, for eating in the summer and just sitting and looking at the garden.

It's not perfect because the temperature can be wrong but as an extra, bonus room, we enjoy it a lot. I would avoid using it for something you rely on, e.g. a dining room or study because then it's a pain when the temp is wrong but for a room that's just a luxury extra space, it's great.

@Chewbecca do you mind me asking what type of insulation and heating / cooling you have in yours?

And yes @madisonbridges PP are correct about heating / building regs.

We don't have much.

We did have underfloor heating but it went wrong and doesn't work anymore.

We have an oil filled rad and a Dyson hot / cold fan heater thingy. It is rubbish. Our conservatory is at its best when the weather makes it perfect!

Thanks

@FanGirlX that’s the house from Sex Education isn’t it? I’ve got that picture saved in my “conservatory inspiration” board!

@Snoopsnoggysnog

Yes it is. I love it. I'm going to take some of the tips on here but in that colour scheme and see what I can come up with.

Spam poster above