Orangery Design Ideas: Inspiration for Every Home
Updated: Oct 9
The best orangery ideas are a centred lantern over the main use, brick piers matched to the house, painted frames in a colour taken from the house, doors across the full garden side, one floor running through from the house, and layered lighting for the evening. Get the roof, the piers, the doors and the frame colour right and the room will suit almost any interior; get them wrong and no amount of decorating will rescue it. Here are the ideas we return to most, outside and in.
Traditional orangery design ideas
A traditional orangery is hardwood frames on a brick or stone base, a deep moulded fascia with a cornice, and a hipped lantern in the roof. The ideas that make it sing are about detail and proportion.
Match the brick. Piers built in brick from the same source as the house, or in reclaimed brick where the house is old, tie the orangery to the building more than anything else.
Paint the joinery. A painted hardwood frame in an off-white, a soft grey or a deep green reads as period joinery in a way that bare timber does not.
Keep the fascia deep. A moulded fascia with a dentil course beneath is the orangery's signature and it should be generous.
Centre the lantern. One lantern, centred on the doors; as a rule of thumb, a lantern's glazed area is about a quarter to a third of the ceiling it sits in, adjusted for orientation and room use.
French doors or a wide sliding pair. Bifolds can look busy on a period elevation; a pair of sliding doors or a set of French doors with fixed sidelights sits more naturally.
Our traditional hardwood orangeries are designed this way, to the house rather than to a catalogue, and the range shows the ideas above on real elevations.
Modern orangery extension ideas
A modern orangery keeps the same bones and quietens the detail. Plain deep fascia, slim painted hardwood frames, and a flat lantern or a row of frameless rooflights. Dark frames, anthracite or bronze, against pale render or old brick give a strong graphic line; white frames against dark brick do the opposite. Full-height glazing without transoms, a corner in frameless glass, and sliding doors that pocket behind a pier all push the orangery towards a glass box while keeping the solid roof that makes it comfortable. High-performance glazing is what allows all that glass to work through the year. Our guide to the modern orangery extension covers materials and glazing in detail.
The most interesting orangeries mix eras: a painted hardwood frame with large uninterrupted glass panels, or traditional brick piers with a flat rooflight roof instead of a lantern. The rule is to change one thing at a time. Keep the proportions traditional and modernise the detail, or keep the detail traditional and open up the glazing. Change everything and the orangery loses its identity.
Orangery layout ideas
The layout should follow the use. A dining orangery wants the table under the lantern and the doors on the garden side, with a pier or a short wall for a sideboard. A kitchen orangery wants the units along the house wall, an island facing the garden and the lantern over the island. A garden room orangery wants low seating facing the doors and nothing in the middle of the floor. Our guide to the uses for an orangery covers more. In every case the doors should span the full width of the garden elevation and the threshold should be level with the terrace outside. Compact plots have their own rules, set out in our small orangery ideas.
Orangery interior design ideas
Inside, an orangery is a bright room with a lot of glass and a plastered ceiling around the edge. The ideas that work with that rather than against it:
Light, warm neutrals on the walls and the ceiling perimeter, so the daylight from the lantern is reflected rather than absorbed.
One floor that runs from the house into the orangery and, ideally, out to the terrace in the same stone. Limestone, engineered timber and polished concrete all work.
Textured fabrics, wool, linen, a rug under the table, to soften a room that is mostly hard surfaces.
A statement light under the lantern. A pendant or a small chandelier hung in the lantern well gives the room a centre at night.
Natural materials, timber and stone, to carry the garden inside.
Orangery ideas by size
In a compact orangery every decision shows. Slimline furniture, built-in seating along a pier, storage in the piers themselves, and pale colours throughout keep the floor open. A large mirror on the house wall doubles the garden. Keep the lantern free of hanging lights and let a floor lamp do the evening work.
With more floor there is room to be bolder: an oversized dining table, a feature wall on the house side, a pair of sofas facing each other under the lantern. Layered lighting matters more in a large orangery, because a single pendant will leave the corners dark.
Lighting and ambience
By day the lantern does everything. By night the orangery needs three layers: a focal light under the lantern, wall or pier lights for the edges, and a concealed LED channel in the pelmet around the lantern well, which washes the ceiling and makes the glass disappear. Put all of it on dimmers. External lighting on the fascia lights the garden elevation and stops the glass turning into a black mirror after dark.
Creating an orangery garden room
An orangery used purely as a garden room is the simplest and often the most pleasing. Large windows frame the garden, deep seating faces them, and plants, big potted ones rather than many small ones, blur the line between inside and out. Underfloor heating keeps it in use through the winter and opening vents in the lantern keep it fresh in summer.
Planning your design
Start with the use, then the orientation, then the doors, then the lantern, then the finishes. A south-facing orangery needs solar control glass; a north-facing one needs the biggest lantern the roof will take. Our annotated orangery images show these decisions built.
Orangery ideas questions, answered
What colour should an orangery be?
A colour taken from the house. Off-white or soft grey joinery suits most period homes; deep green and black suit brick; anthracite and bronze suit modern render. The frame colour should repeat on the fascia and the doors.
What is the best flooring for an orangery?
A hard floor that runs through from the house and, where possible, out to the terrace: limestone, porcelain, engineered timber or polished concrete, all over underfloor heating.
Talk to our design team
An orangery is a room with more design decisions than most, which is why it rewards being done properly. Our orangery range shows where those decisions have been made well, and we are glad to talk through yours.
