Balcony design in Batumi: open, glazed or part of the room

First we decide what the balcony will be

Furniture and fabrics for a balcony depend on whether anyone will sit out there in winter. So we start balcony design in Batumi by choosing one of four options, and everything else follows from it: the floor, the fabrics, the lighting, the sockets and the renovation budget.

The choice isn't only a matter of what you would like. The building rules may ban glazing or prescribe one frame profile for everyone, insulation eats a few centimetres off every wall, and joining the balcony to a room may affect the building's external wall. So we ask the management company for the rules before the first sketch. Which frames suit your floor and what residential complexes allow is covered on the page about choosing glazing for your floor and the building rules.

Furniture by balcony depth

Balconies in new builds are usually shallow, so we plan the furniture from the depth, not the area. The table shows our practice for a balcony entered from a room.

We look at the balustrade separately. A solid balustrade comes up to roughly an adult's waist, and from a low armchair behind it you see the balustrade, not the sea. Behind a balustrade like this we put a tall counter with bar stools. Behind a glass balustrade an ordinary armchair is enough, and we turn it to face the view, not the wall. We keep the way to the opening panels and the outdoor unit clear, so that an engineer can reach the unit without moving the furniture.

The floor, water and the outdoor unit

The balcony floor plan shows the floor finish, the direction of the fall towards the drain or the slab edge, the threshold height and the line where the balcony floor meets the room floor. We choose a light or mid-tone finish: in summer you can't walk barefoot on dark porcelain tiles on the sunny side. If the room has porcelain tiles, we look for the same series in an outdoor version for the balcony and carry the joints across the threshold. A small balcony then looks like part of the apartment even with the door shut.

Planters go on saucers or feet, otherwise they leave marks on the tiles and water stands under them. Heavy tubs go along the wall of the building, not at the edge of the slab. We screen the air conditioner's outdoor unit with a slatted screen that leaves the outflow open and has a removable panel for servicing, and pipe its condensate into the drain: it must not run over the tiles or down to the neighbours. If the balcony is glazed or joined to a room, the unit won't work properly behind glass, so its new place on the facade or in a cage is decided by the building rules before the first sketch. How the fall, the waterproofing and the drip profile are actually built is described on the page about balcony renovation by the sea.

Lighting and sockets

Balcony lighting goes low and warm, 2700–3000 K: a wall light on the building wall, LED strip under a bench or counter. A bright ceiling light dazzles in the evening and turns the glazing into a mirror, and you can no longer see the sea through it. With low lighting there are fewer reflections, and you keep the view.

We draw sockets where they will be needed: by the table for a kettle and a laptop, by the wall for a heater on a warm balcony, by the planters for lighting. On an open balcony they are outdoor-rated with covers, and the switch is inside the room by the door. If the balcony is warm and has a workspace, we plan the lighting and sockets as for an ordinary room, on their own circuit in the consumer unit.

A balcony for yourself and for rental

Your own balcony can take more furniture, and for cushions and tool boxes it is worth building in a bench with a moisture-resistant storage box inside. We choose plants together with their spot: not all of them survive on the sunny side and on a high floor, and the tubs need to be heavy.

In a short-term rental, the balcony with the view is photographed for the listing from the room, through the open door. So we place the furniture so that this shot shows a pair of armchairs and a table, not a clothes airer and the air conditioner unit. A folding airer for swimwear and towels gets a corner that stays out of the shot. We choose furniture that is hard to break and that the wind can't shift, and decor without small items that guests take home or drop over the edge.

If the balcony is joined to a room

Then we design the room and the balcony together: where the furniture goes, where the radiator moves to, what the floor will be like without a threshold, where the sockets and curtains will be. From these sheets and the survey, the architect prepares the layout change design, and before work starts we check with the architect and our partner lawyer which work counts as renovation and which needs approval. We don't touch load-bearing structures or the external wall without a structural design.

If there is a gas boiler on the balcony, the gas service moves it: we don't touch the gas pipe. The joining work itself, from insulated glazing to a floor on one level, is described on the page about joining a loggia to a room.

Common balcony mistakes

• a sofa and a rug on a cold glazed balcony: by spring they smell damp;
• low armchairs behind a solid balustrade, from which you can't see the sea;
• a bright ceiling light that drowns out the view in the evening;
• the outdoor unit is shut in a solid box and overheats;
• furniture blocks the drain or the way to the opening panels of the glazing.

We design the terrace of a private house or a penthouse roof separately, with a structural engineer checking the loads and with shade planned in, as described on the page about terrace and roof design.

How much balcony design costs in Batumi

Design for a balcony of up to 8 m² costs from 960 to 1,440 ₾. The price covers the furniture layout, a floor plan with the fall towards the drain, 3D, lighting and sockets. If the balcony is being joined to a room, the price includes the input data for the layout change design. This is the designer's work: the glazing, the renovation and the layout change design itself are paid for separately.

As a guide to the building work: renovating a balcony without glazing costs from 510 to 720 ₾ per m², waterproofing with materials from 69 ₾ per m², and thermally broken aluminium glazing from 895 ₾ per m² of opening. The work of joining a balcony to a room costs 4,080–6,000 ₾, and a layout change design with approval support 3,600–5,400 ₾.

The design price goes up with a corner or long loggia, joining the balcony to a room with the radiator moved, and built-in furniture such as a bench with a storage box or a counter along the railing. An open balcony with ready-made outdoor furniture costs less. The final cost is set after the survey and once the set of sheets is agreed, and the number of revision rounds is written into the contract.