Dream Home Wishlist - Orangery

Collaborative Post

I need to confess something. I have a habit of searching Rightmove and looking at properties I can’t afford. I consider what furniture I’d have and where I’d put it. I pick which bedroom our son will have and check if there’s space for a hot tub. I even check the school catchment areas.

Yes, I realise I may have a problem!

Since going self-employed my secret habit has worsened and spread over into what I watch on TV. I’ve found myself having the TV on in the background and more often than not a property programme is on the screen! Homes Under The Hammer, My Dream Home, reruns of Location, Location, Location are regulars in my viewing!

Now and again I also buy a home and interiors magazine to have a flip through, and again look at things I can’t afford.

Out of all of this though I’ve started to have a good idea of what I’d like in my dream home. Again, I realise I may have a problem and that my dream house maybe forever a dream but it’s best to have an idea just in case, right?

Well, recently on my daily scroll of Rightmove I spotted a house near us had gone up for sale but it wasn’t an average house though!

Large, detached, multiple rooms, with a huge garden and a historic connection to the local town, it even offered a secret second entrance. It needed a little work but it had the hope of being a dream home! It might have even have had room for a pool!

Then I spotted something else.

In the garden surrounded by weeds, bushes and trees, and in need of lots and lots of attention sat an orangery.

Until a couple of years ago I thought an orangery was a posh word for a conservatory! In a lot of cases it still is but an orangery can be so much more than that.

With all our recent adventures to National Trust properties we have seen lots of orangeries over the last year! Ones that stand alone, some attached to houses.  For that reason I saw orangeries as something stately homes have and not something that everyday homes really feature, but plenty do.

Ok, your average home might not have one but we’re talking dream homes here!

If you’re not sure what an orangery is, a quick Google will tell you it’s a large conservatory type building where orange trees grown.

Traditionally, orangeries were used for the growing of fruit and having one would demonstrate your wealth and class, which is why you’ll see so many of them at National Trust properties!

The difference between a conservatory and an orangery is down to the amount of glass used and the type of roof. A conservatory will mostly be made of glass with 75% of the room glazed, where as an orangery’s roof will be less than that. Orangeries are also that bit more expensive than a standard conservatory.

With more and more people choosing that extra expense over a normal conservatory it seems there maybe more and more orangeries around.

With that in mind I’m pretty sure I’m adding it to my dream home must haves! Even if it is just a posh conservatory!

Mummy Snowy Owl

xx