‘Our Balconette balustrade makes our new bedroom feel a great deal bigger’

This beautiful Balconette glass balustrade without posts has transformed the feel and use of both a new master bedroom and roof terrace for a couple in Oxted, Surrey. Self-installed by homeowner Guy Everall, it has created ‘a fantastic space and makes the whole room feel a great deal bigger’.

Measuring 2.3 metres by 4 metres by 2.3 metres, the structure makes clever use of the Balconette Aerofoil System’s ability to create a glass balustrade up to 4 metres in length without the need for supporting posts. The distinctive wing-shaped handrail has a Royal Chrome Anodised finish.

Extending over their existing double garage allowed the couple to add a new master bedroom to their four-bedroomed detached home. The terrace sits on top of a sturdily built workshop on the side of the garage. Construction started in Spring 2020.

“Cosmetically, we felt it was best not to put on a full second storey and stopped our build short of the edge of the building. We created an outside balcony so that we can enjoy the outside space, but it wasn’t part of the new extension,” explains Guy.

On choosing Balconette, Guy put it down to “just luck” because “Balconette is based on a road just north of Lingfield which is a village not very far from us and I used to drive past the company on my daily commute for over 20 years. When I was in the market for a balcony, I thought I’d pay them a visit and it was as simple as that.”

Despite turning up ‘on spec’ without an appointment, the couple say the Balconette staff were “very friendly, very accommodating, and helped enormously on design.” For Guy, being able to view and touch the different balustrades was a “real benefit.”

“Their showroom has many different balcony examples set up in a discreet area so you could see curved balconies, square, rectangular, balconies with posts and balconies with no posts. Very quickly, you could look at all the different designs and the guy we were talking to was very helpful, very knowledgeable and he was saying ‘what do you want, what are you looking for’ even down to trying different designed handrails.

“He suggested that we lean on the handrail over there and after three minutes, come and lean on this one and tell me which one you find more comfortable. We chose the Aerofoil handrail as it is more comfortable to lean on because it gives you a lot more support. And that was something we would never have thought about unless we’d tried it out and within a very quick period, about 20 minutes, we’d worked out exactly what design, including handrail and glass, we were looking for. So, it was really useful that they had that facility onsite.”

Guy used Balconette’s self-design facility on their website and says the balustrade was ‘absolutely brilliant to install’, continuing: “Once you’d understood the 3-D design tool, it was pretty straightforward to use. In terms of length, we really did want to have no vertical posts. We just wanted plain glass all the way round so when you’re sitting in a chair, there’s nothing blocking your view. And the only limitation there is, is that the maximum length you could go without any posts was 4m long.

“So, that very quickly defined the length of the balcony from corner to corner and then the flat roof itself that I was building on, again the depth of the balcony was defined by where the walls of the new extension were and where the edge of the ground floor workshop was. So, it wasn’t exactly difficult to work out the dimensions of the Aerofoil handrail and the glass that I required.”

A qualified aeronautical engineer, Guy found the balustrade design and installation elements came to him ‘very naturally’ and building the balcony ‘was very straightforward’. He used low-maintenance composite supports and decking to build the terrace before fitting the balcony in just a few days.

“The assembly instructions were great, an online pdf document which was about 40 pages long with a lot of pictures to show you what to do,” he says. “There were numerous online videos showing either computer animations or actual people installing all the different types of balconies. So, I just watched the videos that were applicable and that gave me everything I needed to know. I had watched the videos before as part of my purchasing process and after I’d bought, and they were very useful.”

On the finished result, the couple say that their new bedroom ‘feels a great deal bigger now’ as your eye is drawn through the French Doors to the handrail and the whole outside space feels part of the room.

Guy adds: “I went straight to Balconette, I didn’t really shop around because I was so impressed by everything, in terms of customer service, before and after it was fantastic, technical support during the decision process, the fact that I could look at what I was potentially thinking of buying, and to cap it all, the price was not what I considered to be unreasonable. I liked the people, the professionalism, the design, the service, it was a no-brainer, there was nothing not to like really.

“My thanks to Balconette for building such a great product, it’s lovely to still be able to find really good quality at a reasonable price; it’s a rare thing these days.

“Friends and visitors all say that the balustrade has added a beautiful feature to the house which was already nice. What everybody’s said is that in terms of the cost of purchasing and fitting the balcony, the equivalent value that I’ve added to the house far outweighs the cost. It really has given it the Wow factor!”