Woodbridge home opens up to the outside with energy efficient sliding doors
Chrissie and Julian moved to Suffolk three years ago from London, returning to where Chrissie grew up and escaping city life to live in the countryside. Though beautiful, their new home was an L shape, offering limited interaction with the outside space. The answer was an extension, to square off the heart of the house and open it up to the garden.
“We wanted to achieve three things.” Explains Chrissie.
“More light; the kitchen is on the North corner of the house and was very dark, we wanted to make it lighter.
Secondly, we didn’t have any rooms that looked down the garden, we wanted to change that.
The third objective was a dining space for our kitchen.”
Having been recommended to us by two friends, one of whom had our ultra slim sliding doors and inspired their choice, Chrissie and Julian got in touch and we arranged to visit the property.
“We wanted large panes with minimal sight lines. It’s such a big space, having an opening on two sides was perfect.”
The area the extension would be constructed in previously featured a box hedging and gravel garden, accessed by a back door and a window. This was not unusual, but the well alongside it certainly was. We worked with Chrissie, Julian and their architect, to design a space defined by the inside corners of the house and two sets of our super slim sliding doors (at a ninety-degree angle to each other).
What about the well? The sliding doors stopped before the well, and two fixed frame full-length windows were used to divert around it, continuing the garden views, enabling access when needed and creating an inset feature area, adding character to Chrissie and Julian’s extension.
When asked if they have achieved their objective now the project is complete, Chrissie answered:
“Completely, it’s made the biggest difference, to how we live and to how we entertain.
The kitchen has also been made much warmer in winter. We haven’t even turned the underfloor heating on. We were worried it would be too hot in summer, but that hasn’t been the case.
The doors are easy to operate – very light to open and close, even the children can use them.
We’d definitely recommend The Burgess Group. The result is even better than we’d expected, it’s made a big difference to home life.”
The details:
Chrissie and Julian chose our Sunflex SVG30 super slim sliding doors with flush stacking, flush floor and a stainless steel bar handle and lock on the inside, with a flush handle on the outside.
To find out more about our range of sliding doors click here or visit our showrooms in Woodbridge or Fornham St Martin to experience them for yourself.
