When Lawrence Batchelor and his wife Sarah realised the layout of their Hampshire home wasn’t working for them, it was a case of ‘move or improve’. Would they sell up and find a property better suited to their needs? Or would they remodel their home to increase the size of their living space? The couple chose the latter, with impressive results.
Here, we speak to our customer Lawrence Batchelor about his light-filled kitchen extension and how Minima’s Ultraline slimline sliding doors helped him create a contemporary new look.
We had a perfectly nice house with a decent-sized garden, but the rooms were really boxy and small. The kitchen, in particular, didn’t mirror the size of the rest of the house, so we decided to add a single storey extension to create a large kitchen/living room opening onto the garden. One of the best things about our house is the view down the garden, so we centred the design around two massive sliding glass doors.
The house was built in the 1950s so we decided to go for a complete contrast and create a contemporary extension. We went for black composite cladding from Cladco Roofing to make a real statement. My wife Sarah and I really like the Huf Haus look so we wanted to echo that style with lots of glass. I must admit, it does look a bit like a spaceship has landed at the back of the house! But we’ve got larch cladding alongside it which will soften to a silver colour in time, so we’ll end up with a black and grey colour scheme which should look really good.
Once we’d decided on a contemporary look with lots of glass, the search was on to find a company who could supply us with minimal profile 7 metre wide doors. We came across Minima at the Homebuilding & Renovating Show at Farnborough and straightaway they said: “Yes, we can make your doors.”
We looked at four or five other options but Minima’s pricing was competitive. We also really liked the ventilation feature in which the doors can be locked in a semi-open position. Our Aga is on all the time so we knew the room would get quite hot and we’d need to open the doors to cool it down.
Minima dealt with everything professionally and efficiently. From the moment I first met Dan, he was so friendly and made everything feel very personal. When I told him about our plans for the house he said he’d done a similar extension at his own home and that I should come and take a look! That really stood out for me. Dealing with Minima is about as far as you could get from your typical double glazing salesmen!
When there was a slight issue with one of the internal glass panels we ordered, Minima dealt with it smoothly and professionally. They didn’t try to fudge anything. They just said, “Right, this is the problem and this is how we’re going to solve it.” You’re always going to get hiccups along the way during a building project. It’s how they’re dealt with that counts and I really couldn’t fault Minima on this.
The feeling of space and openness. We added a roof lantern as well as the new doors and there’s so much light coming in now, it’s amazing! We’ve gone from having a tiny kitchen where no-one wanted to be, to everyone hanging out in the kitchen all the time!
We now have an amazing, uninterrupted view down the garden. When anyone walks into the kitchen they can’t help but say: “Wow!” We could have put windows in for half the price, but they wouldn’t have given us the wow factor we have now. Our Ultraline doors are the centrepiece of what we’ve done. They’re such high quality and completely worth the cost. We’re so glad we did it. We’ve definitely got something rather special going on now.
Need help with your own extension or garden room project? Give us a call to find out more about Ultraline’s market-leading slimline sliding doors.