Tanglewood Conservatories Blog

Not everything always goes perfectly…
Recently we hosted a couple at our facility in Maryland. They were visiting us as part of their research into various companies they might engage to design and build a conservatory for their home. We strongly encourage anyone thinking of working with Tanglewood to visit us here and see firsthand what we are all about.

We had a very nice visit together and in the course of showing them around our plant, they asked a very important question. I was talking about our insulated glass units, which we make ourselves and they asked: “What happens if a piece of insulated glass fails?”

This was of particular concern to them as they previously had a conservatory from another company that they had problems with.

My first kneejerk reaction was to talk about the quality of our conservatory products, particularly our insulated glass. The truth is that we have never had a single piece of the insulated glass that we have fabricated fail. This is an exceptional record for the industry and a testament to the level of importance we give to designing and producing not just the most beautiful conservatories in the world – but also the highest quality.

But this answer really did not address the underlying concern that they were voicing. The real question was- “What do you do, as a company when things don’t go right?”

Truth was, I had to admit, that very few of our conservatory projects, and I suspect anyone else’s, goes absolutely right all the time. There are always some issues that surface, some small, and some not so small, that no matter how hard we try, bite us.

I say this even though we have invested huge amounts of time and expense over many years to develop a multi-faceted approach to continuously improving our quality systems.

So the answer to their question was simply this: that when problems arise, we take care of them – and our customers.

I’ve got a lot more to say on this topic some of which I’ll post next time…

Alan

Continued…
It was two years later that the conservatory project began in earnest. The “just a greenhouse” idea had blossomed into a fantastic conservatory garden room with a built in spa and a fireplace in a luxuriant setting.

It had a curving copper roof with a glass cupola and was made from the same rich mahogany as the earlier cupola. You can see this lovely custom conservatory in the Our Portfolio section of our site. It is the #11 project.

All went well with the project, and Molly and Mike have now been enjoying their conservatory for several years when a call from them came to Nancy.

They were getting ready to remodel their kitchen and would like to have us design and build a large, 2 story bay window in the breakfast nook. A new entry door was also needed and the entire space was to be paneled with mahogany wainscoting and trim.

Molly is very fond of prairie-style design and asked if the windows could incorporate a pattern of leaded, stained glass to reflect this. We produced a number of different designs and color schemes however, forever an artist herself, Molly took to the work with colored pencil and markers and produced her own version, a more intricate and personal adaptation of one we had done.

At the same time, they let us know they were not yet finished with Tanglewood! Another renovation is planned for an alcove off their master bedroom and an existing sunroom that will become another conservatory room, a glass domed parlor – also in the same beautiful mahogany of which they are so fond.

Here’s a story. Tanglewood has just received its third commission from a single customer. I think this is the first time this has happened. Over the course of the last 5 years, Molly and Michael have become so enamored of Tanglewood, that they keep ordering more of our work for their lovely home.

When they first came to know of us, they dreamed of having a beautiful mahogany conservatory off in their garden. Molly had originally wanted “just a greenhouse” but when she began to research what was available, she came upon Tanglewood and instantly fell in love with the design and great craftsmanship. Mike was another story however – since he pays the bills!

After a trip to Tanglewood though, Mike was a new found convert. As they began to plan for their conservatory, another issue arose. The roof of the home that they had built several years earlier had sprung a leak. It was in a difficult spot, a skylight at the intersection of several roof slopes and they had had trouble with it from the very beginning.

Since the skylight lit the main entry foyer of their home, they decided to do something about it once and for all. They engaged Tanglewood to design a beautiful roof lantern for the spot and to remove the old existing skylight.

The new roof lantern was made from the same rich mahogany as their future conservatory and had stained glass panels on the sides as well. It was to be a mini version of the great conservatory to come.

Because it was quite high above the floor level, they decided to have us use our premier two part poly finish which is virtually maintenance free. The outside was clad with copper. The completion of the beautiful roof lantern only whet their appetite for the main course to come.

To be continued…

Tanglewood Conservatories will be closed on Friday March 21st for our annual company bowling tournament. After a hearty breakfast, the entire company will head out to the local bowling alley for the much awaited affair.

We hold this event at least once a year with everyone from the company in attendance. Besides being just plain fun, it’s a great opportunity to bring everyone together outside of the usual work environment – where everyone’s “role” is already well “rehearsed”.

Teams are purposely chosen with the aim of breaking down the distinctions between functional groups in the company. Someone from our shop staff will be paired with someone from the office or with someone from engineering staff. This gives everyone a great chance to get to know and compete with others that they would not normally mix with.

The experience can go a long way towards fostering greater cohesion and cooperation in our normal work conservatory projects. Because the custom conservatories we build are so different from one another, it requires a high degree of input from many individuals throughout the process. I’ve found that our ability to perform efficiently throughout this process is directly related to everyone’s sense of connection to it and thus to our ability to perform as a cohesive team.

We’ll post pictures afterwards of the winners soon.

In the summer, it’ll be a horseshoe pitching tournament!

-Alan

Continued…
We regularly get requests for projects that are truly different from the “standard” wood conservatory. For example, an architect recently called who was searching for a company to design and build a steel conservatory for his client.

He did not mean a wood conservatory with steel in it, but a conservatory made entirely from steel so that it had the authentic look of an original “old-world” glass house. It was to cover a swimming pool and be attached to an exquisitely designed French country manor home.

He hired Tanglewood to design a classical steel conservatory structure that had no woodwork either on the inside of the room or on the outside. The roof structure was designed using decoratively detailed steel parts that included actual steel rafters themselves.

Since we had not built a conservatory like this before, almost all of the details had to be conceived and thought out from scratch. We literally invented a completely new building system to accomplish what had been asked of us by the architect.

This is not so unusual for us and we enjoy the kind of challenge. The end result is always something quite spectacular in part because it is such a departure from what has been done before and also because it seems to open such new and exciting opportunities for interesting new projects. The finished conservatory always has such a unique, fresh look.

Another example of this was the Palmhouse project we recently completed and is shown on the second page of the Palmhouses & Greenhouses section of our site. The technique of using small overlapping flat panes of glass to form a curved geometric form was used extensively in the nineteenth century. Look at the images of the elaborate conservatories from that era. It’s hard not to marvel at their outrageous design creativity – not to mention their willingness to actually try to build some of those things!

The way those conservatory domes and other shapes were constructed utilized the same technique which we decided to attempt to revive. A lot of research and development time went into the project before we were comfortable that we could really pull it off.

When we did however, the resulting aesthetic is something that could not have been created by “faking it” – by which I mean trying to get something that looks sort of like the real thing, but misses the mark.

We’ve got some more interesting efforts of this kind in the works which I’ll fill you in on as they progress.