The enormous lantern!

When your garden room stretches across the width of the house, you need a big solution.

If entertaining is a big part of your life, opening up the house into the garden is a real advantage.

This multi-function area is a dining room, a living room, a garden room and a kitchen annex. With over seven metres of opening, there were several options. In this instance the owners went for split bifolds with three leaves on one side and three on the other with the two centre leaves acting as a double traffic door. The ultimate goal for them was not an uninterrupted view but rather full open access to the social area in the garden. aïr Bifolds are the best way to achieve this kind of effect.

The extension, even with such a wide opening, can cut out light to the centre of the house. The ambitious and striking solution has been to add a full length lantern roof which simply floods the entire area with light. The lantern has built in ventilation.

The doors have been fitted with internal (dust free) blinds which are operated by motor to cut out sunlight when things get a bit too hot!

For apertures this wide, sliding doors are certainly a tempting option and see our other project, ‘sliding transformation’, to see how this could work. Sliding doors, likely triple-track at this width, would be ideal for unspoilt views since the panes can be so much larger than bifolds. We advise to start with the end in mind; this family wanted to achieve open space for entertaining rather than views and bifolds were the solution they needed.