10 Ways To Use Your Conservatory
Why do some people build a conservatory and others do not?
It’s about connection. Connecting with nature, with the outdoors. Bring the natural outdoor environment into your house and experience it, rain or shine every day of the year. How many days of your year do you find yourself holed up in the house? How many days of the year is it too cold, too buggy, too rainy, too windy for you to sit outside and enjoy the day?
My answer to that question, if you own a conservatory is ZERO! There is never a day you don’t want to be outside, when outside is inside!
This morning as the red fox walked by my conservatory, sniffing the yard for chipmunks, I realized how blessed I am. When lightening storms come our way, we head to the conservatory to watch! When there is a blizzard outside, we head to the conservatory to pretend we live in a snow globe! We use our conservatory every single day of the year.
Here are 10 ways to use your conservatory
1. Growing
Either readying them for spring or keeping plants alive over the winter. At its core, a conservatory is built for growing! I need to be in touch with green living things. In the depths of winter when it seems though all life has stopped, I sit in the conservatory and marvel at the lemons growing on the Meyer tree, or the mass of yellow flowers on the Thunbergi. I don’t think I appreciate these little joys in the summer as much as I do in the winter, when we co-exist in our conservatory.
Back in March there were 50 flats growing and getting their duty assignments. Now they’re gorgeous flowers in the garden for a summer wedding.
2. Entertaining
At the end of the week, family and friends just naturally stop by to sit in the conservatory and have a snack with a drink. The conservatory unwinds you. It grounds you to your reality and shakes the stress of a difficult work week.
3. Afternoon tea
We have 6 grandchildren. They enjoy a little ritual in their lives. We make English tea (for children) and we all enjoy having a proper cup of tea when they visit. Not to make light of a time honored tradition, but more to take the time to stop and do something that has some level of ritual attached to it.
Customers stop by to see what a conservatory is all about. Tea is also what it is all about, so we always have a kettle on. Come stop by- we’ll have the milk and sugar ready!
4. Reading
A conservatory is like a reading room. A quiet respite. Nestle on the chair, maybe some good music, stars over head, a soft reading lamp. I can’t say more about this. Turn the act of reading a book into an event, for the rest of your life! The novelty will never wear off.
5. Playing music
Does music move you? It does most people. We all have our preferences when it comes to music (in my own house we do!), but there is no finer room in which to turn the music to your favorite and listen loud, listen soft, but be one with the composition. The acoustics of the glass will treat you to the best music hall you have ever been in.
In my conservatory, it is a team effort with me and my Hammond B3, which I resurrected from a sure death, and totally re-built. 1956 was a great year for Hammond, and many a starlit night one will stop by and hear the distinctive sound of the Hammond B3 working on some jazz rift that the organ knows, the player (me) is learning.
6. What is your instrument?
Recently, Mrs Hewitt has re-visited painting. She is a talented artist who has taken time in her life to raise 4 very great kids and now is turning to her old passion as well.
What is your passion? What is it that you used to do, and put away? Pull it out, give it a room. Find yourself again…….
7. Eating
I have always advised people “build the conservatory close to your kitchen”. I just know, from talking to the hundreds of happy conservatory owners that they have breakfast, lunch and dinner in the conservatory.
One customer (who built two conservatories on two homes!) told me that he only uses his kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and conservatory. The rest of the house was useless! He and his wife sat and started every morning together in the conservatory with coffee and the newspaper. Maybe no one ever spoke, but the bonding ritual is real, and they meet like clockwork, every morning in the conservatory. Sometimes a real conversation takes place, other days no words are spoken. It doesn’t matter. The stage is set, the ritual observed, the day is embraced.
8. Naptime
Remember that good book we talked about? Well you can guess what followed! A great nap! Sometimes when the house just doesn’t seem warm enough in January, the sun is out and one takes advice from the cat and curls up under a warm window and takes a nap. If life were to paint a picture of the most pure and joyful things you have done in your life, that nap is high on the list.
Many a star lit night has become a starlit sleep in the conservatory. Sleeping under the stars, no bugs, no rain, just you and nature. Does sleep get any better? Try it, you’ll like it.
9. Game night
Wholesome competition brings families together. We have game night as a family, but also with friends. Trivia, Pantomime, Games! Really, the old fashioned things people used to do TOGETHER before the age of home video games. There is nothing better than the bonding moment of sharing tons of laughs with family and friends playing games. When is the last time you played games? Well, you can play games in any room of the house, but when you begin the ritual in the conservatory, the kids, the friends, the family look forward to game night in the conservatory.
10. Romance
We can’t pass on the best of all. Fire up some candles. Watch them reflect over and over again in each window in a dizzying display of candlelight! A nice bottle of wine, some great music. Re-kindle your love for your soul mate in a special, most intimate room ever built.
The conclusion is that anyone can put a room on their house, but only a special person understands why adding a conservatory on their house creates a new way of living. It’s a room unlike any other, a crystal palace all your own.
