Modernise a conservatory

[Abblebee]

Just looking for ideas on how to make this look attractive?

It's very brown....... is that vinyl on the floor or tiles? A lighter floor would be better. Paint the bare brick, even better skim and paint. Not sure there is much you can do with the brown frames and brass handles. Remove the fan. And is that polycarbonate roof? Replace with modern thermal sun reflecting glass.

Definitely plaster the brick and paint in a light colour with a light tile or wooden floor.

Id remove the fan and the roof (if you have the budget). Can you get a carpenter to box in all the brick and tile. Or paint brick and get a new sill put on top.
Definitely get rid of that flooring.
You can paint UPVC but no experience personally. It needs all the brown gone for sure.

Can you paint over the brown frames?

You could look at companies that respray UPVC.
Also, if you can't afford to replace the whole roof you could look at insulated panelling for the inside of the roof. Attaches to the frames, regulates the temperature more and makes the room more useable all year round.

We have a dark conservatory, luckily the tiles are light and the most of the walls are plastered so we painted them blue. And in 2 weeks we will be having panelling fitted on the roof. Haven't decided if we want to respray the inside yet as we also have fitted blinds that have brown frames.

Thanks all. It's a house I'm thinking of buying. Just wanted some ideas of how to make it look nicer 😀

I've never had a conservatory before, never mind renovated one!

You can skim over Brick's and paint in light colour. Get rid of monstrosity fan. You could either paint floor tiles in either plain colour paint or laminate over the top of the tiles. Paint out that dark brown to white. None are expensive jobs. Check if it has under floor heating before ripping out floor tiles.

And I'd like it to be useable all year round as a home office and dining room.

You can paint the upvc yourself.. I'm about to start on mine soon! Use zinsser bin or 123 to prime it first, then you can paint it with anything. Personally I wouldn't paint brick, I quite like exposed brickwork anyway.

Are the frames wood or upvc?
I quite like brown wood frames (but all the wood in my house is stained brown wood).

Definitely plaster & paint, or just paint, the brickwork.

Consider a new roof, either a proper roof (there are business that do it) or glass.

New flooring.

It will need heating to be usable year round, and that won't be cheap in winter.

@Abblebee
That won’t be usable all year round. I would budget to pull it down and build an extension instead. That would be built with insulation and proper heating. If you need a usable room, this isn’t it.,

Yes you can. We've done the insides of nearly all the windows in our house and a few years on, it's still looking great. We used a UPVC primer and then replaced the brass fittings for chrome. No regrets and a huge cost saving on replacing the lot.

Why won't it be usable all year round?

I'd love something like this.

You'll need a good heat source in there during the winter and it might become unbearably hot in the height of summer. Sometimes it's not feasible to just rip it down and build a proper extension though, understandably!

If your budget allows, I'd replace the lot with a white/modern conservatory using higher spec glass windows and a glass roof, both with reflective/anti sun coatings etc.

We had an old one like that (plastic roof and old glass) and it was too hot in Summer and too cold in winter. We kept the low walls and replaced everything else to modern spec, including skimming the internal walls and re-tiling the floor. Ours was basically the same shape, but a bit smaller and only cost £10k. Far cheaper than it would have cost for a "proper" extension and we now use it all year round with no problems.

@Abblebee
Old style cheap conservatories get either too hot or freezing cold. I have a 2 sided oak framed orangery kitchen. It has underfloor heating. It has the highest spec glazing. It has big opening doors and roof panels that open. It’s still a bit hot under direct sun in summer and a bit chilly on the coldest days. It has under floor insulation and joins a heated house on two walls. Unless you have all the design elements described, it won’t be usable all year. Money thrown at a cheap conservatory is good money after bad in my honest opinion.

Thank you. All conservatory knowledge is welcome (as I have none).

There are companies that change the roof to a more solid one. I've seen them advertised. Anyone done this ?

We got quotes for this...... £30k to £40k 😵- we decided to just upgrade the glass instead, for £6k.

Agree. Just bought a house with a similar old fashioned conservatory.

for now it’s a store room but longer term plan is to build an extension using the same footprint

for now it’s a store room but longer term plan is to build an extension using the same footprint

Do you need planning permission for this?

Why would it cost so much more than an actual house roof? You wouldn't even need scaffolding. I'd have got more quotes... they may have quoted high as they didn't like the job.

We use our conservatory all year round. In fact uts our main living room. It has one radiator and isn't cold in the winter. We have thermal panels in the roof but apart from that is a bog standard conservatory - although only two walls are glass the other two brick.