Bringing In The Light In A Barrington Orangery.
The Cambridge Conservatory Centre has been designing and building glass rooms for over 30 years. In that time, we’ve created many rooms for many different people, but ever so often a particular project still has the power to wow us. And this Barrington Orangery certainly does that. Once in a while we design something that is so perfect that even we’re blown away!
When the owners of this gorgeous Arts & Crafts home approached us to design a light and airy room to connect them to their stunning garden, none of us had any idea just how special this room would turn out to be. Although their home is a beautiful example of Arts & Crafts architecture, the owners wanted a contemporary room that would allow them to live a modern lifestyle. The new room should provide them with an inviting space to sit and enjoy the garden, be comfortable year round no matter what the weather, sit harmoniously with the main house and add both beauty and value to their home.
So we started with the features and colours of the main house. The walls are rendered in a warm cream that looks fabulous all year round and the windows and doors are all white. It made sense to continue these colours through to the orangery as they would provide a link between the traditional house and contemporary style of the orangery. The roof of the home was broken up with gable ended attic windows which we mirrored in the gable end of the orangery. The vertical glazing bars of these windows were added in the triangular window in the end gable. And the small square panes of glass that are a feature of the the traditional windows were included as a row of fixed windows above the tall panels below. In fact so much of the detail of the house is reflected in this Barrington Orangery, that you’d almost expect it to look traditional.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
Not only is the finished orangery beautifully styled with a raft of details but it makes use of the latest in thermally efficient and self-cleaning glass from Pilkington Activ™. The solar properties of the glass are obvious when the sun is shining as the colour of the glass changes to a smoky appearance that effectively controls the temperature of the interior space. And it also works in reverse to stop heat escaping in the winter months. Thanks to modern technology, glass rooms are gaining in popularity and this Barrington Orangery shows us exactly why!
Roof windows allow the air to circulate throughout the room and a five panel set of doors fold completely to one side giving unrestricted access to the patio and garden beyond. The cream tiled floor almost exactly matches the colour of the rendered walls of the exterior of the house. And to ensure that it feels like sunshine even on the greyest of days, the owners chose an antique gold colour for the interior walls. Accent pieces picked out in a Raspberry colour tie the interior of this stunning Barrington Orangery to roses in the garden just outside the windows. Together with wicker furniture that almost exactly matches the brick retaining wall that edges a wide expanse of lawn a couple of steps above the floor level, everything about this Barrington Orangery feels absolutely perfect.
This Barrington Orangery estension is 6.2 m long x 4.6m wide making it a fantastically versatile space for the family or for entertaining.
I don’t know about you, but I could while away many an hour in this stunning orangery.