Loving Life with Lanterns

Loving Life with Lanterns

Kathy & Adrian Ellis have recently converted their old conservatory into a stunning new flat roof extension featuring Ultrasky Lanterns. Flooded with light thanks to the two large lanterns in the roof and with striking bi-fold doors that fully open the extension up to the garden, it is undeniable that this is an extension with the wow factor!

Adrian Ellis explained more about the couple’s reasons for wanting to extend their home and how the new living space has transformed the way they live in their home:

“Our back garden is west facing and has tree cover so 10 years ago we installed a single pane glass conservatory which created a great, light area and provided warmth to sit and enjoy the evenings. However, we soon found that it was ideal in spring and autumn but too hot in summer and too cold in winter.  It was showing its age and the base was wood and started to rot. We could have removed it or repaired it but decided to replace it. We have recently retired and now spend more time at home so we really wanted an extension that gave us a light airy room that was useable all year round with modern furniture rather than garden furniture.  We thought that this was also an ideal opportunity to open up the space into the rest of the house and create an open-plan room that would link our lounge and dining room.

Working with the team at Lifestyle Windows in Derbyshire, we designed a contemporary space that we knew would look good and perform well for many years to come. We worked with Lifestyle to create an extension design that had the maximum opening into the garden with bi-fold doors and also opened up access to the house.  It was really important to us that our new space and the newly adjoining rooms had plenty of natural light and so we chose to include two Ultraframe Ultrasky roof lanterns in our design. We needed an extension roof design that maximised light but given the size of the new glass area, it needed to provide a high level of energy efficiency too.  We worked through the options with Lifestyle to find the right balance - we thought that one lantern would not offer enough light and one large lantern may have been too bright inside so for our extension, two mid-sized Ultrasky Lanterns were the ideal choice.

Now that our new extension is complete, we love it, it’s so bright and joyful. It’s our go-to space to chill but is also a great space for BBQs and entertaining friends and family. The newly transformed space opens up the entire house and makes the garden feel like another room. The modern look of the space provided the perfect backdrop to add colourful and funky furniture to liven up the whole house and we have had many comments about how beautiful it all looks.

We now use the living room less as the extension is such a nice place to sit and chill and it also links the rest of the house together so we actually use the dining room more.

When it came to finding the right partner to carry out our project, we searched online to find a local installer.  Lifestyle had great reviews and a showroom where we could see all of the products, including the Ultrasky Lanterns. They provided a high specification for our design with the Ultrasky Lanterns and aluminium bi-fold doors and this was key in our decision to work with them on our project. The installation teams were professional and finished the work to a high standard and overall, we received great customer service.

Lifestyle also did the additional landscaping that really linked the extension to the garden and finished off the project so well. We love our new extension and have had many people commenting about it to us, including our window cleaner who told us that he loves the design of the Ultrasky Lanterns as well as how easy they are to clean!”