You just moved into a new place with a cute little sunroom, or you've finally got up the motivation to turn your storage area back into the sunroom it's supposed to be. You're on the hunt for some gorgeous and unique ideas to decorate and stock your sunroom. We've got a few ideas ourselves, and we hope that these Small Sunroom Ideas help you out!
1) Rustic Nature Sitting Area
Sunrooms are about bringing sun and nature into your home without the mess and the bugs and the sunburn, so one way to renovate or decorate one is to create a rustic sitting area dedicated to the connection to nature like this one from Cobblestone Farms. You can create a small sitting area with two seats since your room is probably quite a bit smaller than theirs, then add natural decorations like the ones they've used.
2) Barn Doors
A swinging door takes up a lot of space when you're planning a room. In a tiny room, you'll probably spend most of your time trying to figure out whether you can fit this or that furniture piece and still have room to swing the door. Even if your room isn't so tiny that that's a huge consideration, building sliding doors will make a significant difference in the amount of space you have. Try making barn doors using a kit like this so that your doors can be decorations.
3) Single-Person Garden Niche
A genuinely tiny sunroom might only have room for one person, and instead of trying to make more fit into a smaller area, you might have to embrace the space for what it can offer. You can build a truly remarkable little garden niche like the one Alaina Kaczmarski and Danielle Moss made in this video. You can see how tasteful it is and how it doesn't feel too cramped for one person. We think this would make an excellent reading nook or just a place to relax and scroll through your phone while enjoying nature.
4) Sliding Door
A sliding door of any sort is ideal for small spaces because you don't need to leave room for the door to swing. You'll need to leave walking space, but if you have a couch that's two inches too long, it won't stop your door from opening and closing at all. You can get a sliding door panel like this from Amazon. It even has a neat design that'll make your sunroom look nicer, particularly if you have a modern farmhouse-style home.
5) Shades
Sun is obviously one of the primary purposes of a sunroom, but there are times that you'll want to sit and read or play games on your phone, but the glare from the sun will be too much. In most sunrooms, you could move to a new seat, but in your small sunroom, that's probably not an option. Instead, you can get shades like these ones from Amazon to block the worst of the sun. If you pull them down partway, they should stop the glare without blocking all your warm light. They even come in different colors.
6) Light Creams and Yellow
A sunroom is all about sunlight, and light cream and yellow are colors that'll create a sunny feeling and enhance the warm impression the sunlight creates. You can browse through the photographs in this Grace in My Space article to see what speaks to you and use the design inspiration to build your cream or yellow sunroom. The light colors will make the room seem more spacious and reflect more light so that the room is filled with warmth, even on cloudy days.
7) Terrarium Bubbles
Gardens are lovely things to have, but if you don't have a good climate for one or if you want to bring a little bit of nature inside, your sunroom is an appropriate place to put plants. The question is, where should you put them if you don't have room for full-sized planters? We saw these terrarium bubbles on Amazon and thought this would be the perfect use for them since they're wall-mounted, so they won't take up any floor space.
8) Daybed Couch
Even small sunrooms can make warm and bright lounges if you can find the right furniture combination for them, which can be difficult if you're waffling between two purposes. You probably want to take naps occasionally, but there will be times when you'll just want to relax and read a book, so a bed doesn't work. A futon might be too big, so instead, we'd recommend getting a daybed couch that can be either a bed or couch at a given moment. You can learn a bit more about daybeds here and decide whether this is the best route.
9) Futon
We know that this is a small room, but if you have enough space, a futon really is an intelligent choice for a small sunroom. You can use it as either a bed or a couch, so you'll have extra sleeping space for guests, and you can sleep there to enjoy the night sky and the feeling of being close to nature sometimes. A futon gives you the option of a bed, and you can get a fairly compact one like this one from Amazon that should fit in almost any sunroom
10) Window Bench
Windows are the main feature of a sunroom, but people tend to put furniture in places where they'll be able to see out the windows with their backs to the wall. That's not the only way to do it, though; you can put seats under the window to get the full effect of the sunlight and lounge sideways so that you can still look outside when you want. You can see how comfortable and sunny this Pine and Prospect Home window bench is, and design your small window bench based on it.
11) Fireplace Insert
If your sunroom is warm for a few months but gets chilly at night or in winter, you can turn it into a year-round sunroom easily by adding a heater. Since it's small, it won't take much, but of course, a heater will take up space. We'd suggest getting a fireplace insert like this one from Amazon that won't take up much space, but that will provide plenty of warmth to keep the room cozy all year.
12) Simple Farmhouse Style
Farmhouse style is nice because there are extravagant farmhouses, but there are also small and humble ones. This makes a simple design as authentic as a fancier one, and we'd suggest the simpler design for a small room. You can let the room speak for itself with a simple design like the one in this picture that won't take up space with ornate designs. Farmhouse style is popular nowadays, and it's appropriate for a sunroom since sunrooms are close to the outdoors, just like farms.
13) Macrame Hanging Chair
For whatever reason, it always seems like losing floor space is worse than losing wall space or any other type of space. That's why we'd suggest getting hanging furniture and decorations for a small room so that you're not using as much floor space. Instead of a rocking chair, you can get a hanging chair that you can swing back and forth in like this macrame one. This one from Amazon has a curved shape that looks so comfortable!
14) Couch Corner
Small spaces take more planning than larger ones since you can't just put whatever you want in them. You have to make sure your furnishings will fit and still look nice, and there's a limited number of pieces that'll work, so you've got to be choosy. One plan we liked was the couch corner like the one Ashley Lopez designed in this video. You can use candles and plants with wicker furniture to create a natural look and use a small corner couch like she did to make the most of that room.
15) Hang Plants
If you remember that you don't just have a floor and walls, but a ceiling as well, you can get a lot more use out of a small space. If you have a table or couch and you're not going to use the space above it anyways, use that as an opportunity to hang decorations. Sunrooms are excellent places for plants since they get plenty of sunlight, so hanging planters are an exceptional hanging decoration choice. Since macrame has become so popular, try getting macrame hanging planters like these ones from Amazon.
16) AC
Sunrooms are lovely places to bask in the sun and heat, but there are times during the height of summer when you'd probably rather have the sun without the heat. For those times, an air conditioner is a perfect thing to make your sunroom comfortable and keep it enjoyable at all times throughout the summer. We liked Pat from Country Chatter's air-conditioned sunroom because it looks comfortable and stylish despite its small size, and we hope you can get inspiration from it, too!
17) Texture
Since you don't have infinite decorative space, you'll need to make sure each decoration counts, and one way to do that is to focus on more than one aspect of the decor. For example, you can get things in patterns and textures, along with various colors, to make the whole area seem more interesting without taking up any space. Look for something like this textured rug that has a smattering of other colors and a unique texture that'll add variety to the sunroom.
18) Add Windows
You want a lot of light to get into your sunroom, of course, but there's a wide range of window arrangements that you can use depending on how much light you want. In a small sunroom, you'll want the most light because good lighting makes rooms seem bigger, but you'll also want to have a lot of control over it since it'll be harder to move to escape glare while using a phone or reading. We'd suggest using this guide to add more windows and getting curtains for them to control the sunlight.
19) Decorative Thermometer
A thermometer is a neat thing to have in a sunroom because the sun makes it warmer than the rest of the house, but it can be cool to see how much warmer it is. In a small room, though, you don't want to include anything that doesn't serve a purpose, so we'd recommend getting a decorative one like this to improve your decor with something that's functional and decorative. Wall decorations are ideal since they don't take up precious floor space where you could be sitting and relaxing.
20) DIY Brick Wall
A lot of outdoor spaces have brick walls, and your sunroom is the closest thing you have to an outdoor space inside your home. If you want it to look and feel more like a porch but with all the comforts of an indoor space, you can make a brick accent wall using the information in this video by Viola Demyan. An accent wall will be more noticeable in a small sunroom since it'll probably be on your biggest wall, and it's the main thing people will see when looking in from outside.
21) Rug
Since this room is small, you'll want to decorate in ways that don't take up space or that take up very little space. This makes rugs an ideal choice because they don't take up space and they give you a comfortable place to walk. You or your kids can sit on the floor if you have a comfy rug to sit on, and it'll keep the room warmer and absorb sound. There are a lot of reasons to have a rug, and we suggest a pretty indoor/outdoor one like this.
22) Compact Rocking Bistro Set
Since you don't have a lot of room, you might've assumed that a rocking chair or swing would be impractical, but there are ways to get furniture like that that don't take up a lot of space. This bistro set from Amazon has rocking chairs, but they're compact, so they shouldn't need as much room as traditional rocking chairs would. They're also an outdoor set, so if you ever decide to move them to the porch or patio, you can.
23) Bright Greens and Yellows
When you decorate a small room, bold and bright colors can make the area pop and make up for the small size. Since sunrooms are all about sun and nature, green and yellow make wonderful choices. The yellow makes it feel bright and cheerful, while the green brings nature into the room. We fell in love with this green and yellow sunroom from Hooked on Houses, and even though it's not small, we think you can gain some inspiration from it for a small bright green and yellow sunroom.
24) Rocking Glider
Gliders probably seem like a luxury for people with big porches, not people with small sunrooms, but you can have a glider, too. We found this glider from Amazon that has limited motion and doesn't hang from the ceiling so that you can tuck it into the corner and rock back and forth comfortably no matter how small your sunroom is. Sunrooms and the perfect place for relaxing, and this idea will make yours much more relaxing.
25) Reflective Gold Decor
You probably don't have a lot of decorating room, but ultimately the sun is your main decoration. The question becomes, how do you use the sun to your advantage? It provides light, but it can do so much more for your sunroom, and with limited space, relying on the sun for decoration can make the room stand out a lot more than it could otherwise. We found these gold pillows on Amazon, and you can add other decorations to make the room shine.
26) Bright Floor Nook
If you have a really tiny space, you don't have to try and furnish it like a typical sunroom or living space. It's already atypical, so instead, embrace the unusual size and make it into a cozy tiny area like one in this article by The Homesteady. The sunroom in this article is absolutely tiny, but they made it work by creating a beautiful and comfortable floor nook with bright colors that make it stand out. The niche looks so comfy that we'd love to be cozied up there ourselves!
27) Privacy Window Film
Sunrooms are usually in the front of the house or at least in a place where they're very noticeable to the public because that's typically where the best sunlight and often the best view are. This can create privacy concerns in a small sunroom where you don't have spaces you can move into to stay out of sight and still enjoy the sunroom. A privacy film like this one from Amazon can help so that you don't have to cover the windows with curtains, and people can't see inside as well.
28) A Few Large Pieces
One helpful piece of advice we found when looking into small sunrooms was not to get tiny furniture. This can be tempting because little furniture pieces let you fit more into the small space, but they end up making it feel cluttered, so we'd suggest taking some advice from Yvonne at StoneGable and picking one or two large pieces that'll take over the area. This'll feel more comfortable in the long run, and you won't be tripping over a bunch of furniture or feeling as cramped.
29) Small Indoor Heater
Sunrooms are temperature-sensitive since they have a lot of windows, and this means that while they let in a lot of heat through sunlight during the day, they'll also let a lot of heat back out at night. If you enjoy sitting in a calm, quiet sunroom at night and watching the night sky, you'll want something to keep the sunroom warm at night. If your central heat doesn't keep this room warm enough, try getting a small indoor heater like this one from Amazon. It shouldn't take much to keep a small room warm.
30) Gold Furniture
Gold is a wonderful color for a sunroom since it's reflective and it makes you think of the sun. To accent sunlight, which is the primary feature of a sunroom, you can use gold furniture and other gold decorations. You can use these directions to paint your sunroom furniture golds so that they reflect the sun and make the pieces stand out. This is an excellent way to decorate without having to add a lot of pieces that can make the room feel cluttered. You can just rely on the simplicity of a bold color choice.
31) Multi-Tier Planter
If you love plants and want to create an indoor garden, you might think you don't have enough room or that you have to choose between making a garden and having a sitting area in your sunroom. Sunrooms are excellent places for year-round indoor gardens since they get plenty of light, but you'll need a trick to put your plants in the sunroom without losing much space for other things. This multi-tier planter can fit half a dozen plants in an area that'd typically only fit two or three, so you can have plenty of green without using much space.
32) Hammock Chair
Overall, hanging things tend to take up less usable space than things that sit on the floor since they interfere less with walking space and don't create the same crowded feeling or risk of tripping. This makes them a good way to furnish a small room without making it seem as small or cramped. We found a neat hammock chair from Amazon that can hang from the ceiling. The blue and white design looks lovely with many decor styles, so you can put it in most sunrooms, and it'll match.
33) Painted Floor
Since you don't have a lot of space, you've got to make sure you decorate all the space you have appropriately. One way to decorate all your space is to paint not just the walls and ceiling but also the floor. That might not seem all that interesting, but take a look at how Bethany Nolan painted her sunroom floor. This pattern makes an amazing decoration, and you can add a pattern you like to your sunroom floor, too. It's a lot cheaper than tiles and adds a different dimension to the room.
34) Grow Herbs
If you love growing plants, you might have a garden outside, but one of the luxuries of a sunroom is that it's a sunny place that's warm year-round. This makes it perfect for an indoor garden, but of course, yours is small, and you might not have room for a full-fledged indoor garden. One solution is to grow herbs instead. They're smaller and take up almost no space, so you can just get a little hydroponics planter like this one from Amazon to grow them in.
35) Garden
If you really want an indoor vegetable garden despite your sunroom's small size, there are definitely ways of doing it, so don't feel like you have to settle for something less. You'll have to look for planters that are well-designed, and your sunroom may be more of a garden than a place to sit, but the point of a sunroom is to relax. If gardening is how you relax, go for it! We've even found you a guide for planting that's designed specifically for sunroom gardening.
36) Thermal Insulated Curtains
Sunrooms are generally one of the warmest places in the house or one of the coldest, because they have a lot of windows that let in sunlight during the day and let out warmth at night. In a small room, it takes a lot less time for warm air to get out, so it's even more important to find a way to keep the warmth in. One way to do that is to get thermal insulated curtains like these ones from Amazon. These will also help keep the sun out to cool the room down on an extremely hot day.
37) Daybed Ottoman
Since a lounge is one of the more common uses for sunrooms, we figured we should give you plenty of ideas for how to turn your sunroom into a lounge. The main issue is lack of space and looking for a way to have everything you want in the smaller room, so one option we'd suggest is to get a daybed ottoman like this that won't take up much space when you're not using it. Then, whenever you want to lay down and have a more spacious seat, you can unfold it.
38) Sunroom Office
Sunrooms are bright and happy places, and while you might be thinking of them as recreational places, that sunlight can help you focus when you're trying to do paperwork or other difficult things that require concentration. That's why we think it's a perfect place to put an office like this one JustbeingKatherine makes in this video with just a 25 sq. ft. sunroom. You'll have to put up some curtains if you have a computer, but ultimately your sunroom would be an incredible office.
39) RGB Lights
In a small room, you won't have a lot of extra room to dedicate to tabletop and floor decorations, so you can put decorations in places that you normally wouldn't put anything instead. Try installing RGB lights around the edges of the ceiling to create a beautiful light show at night. You can get color-changing ones like these to make it spectacular! Since light's your sunroom's main attraction during the day, why not make it the primary decoration at night, too?
40) Bright Abstract Designs
You don't have a lot of room to decorate, so you'll want to make everything into a decoration. This doesn't mean you need to create a gaudy and too-bright space, but you can make sure that things like your rugs and furniture are attractive. Bright, abstract designs like the ones on this rug are great for attracting attention, and a sunroom is a bright and happy place, so they help you keep with that theme.
41) Kids' Space
If you have kids, sometimes it's better to give the smaller spaces over to them. They'll love having their own room, and what feels small and tight to you will feel spacious to them. We saw this neat idea for a chalkboard table from That Inspired Chick that we think would be incredible for a kids' sunroom. It doesn't even cost that much to make a chalkboard table; you can just get some chalkboard paint and paint any table with that.
42) Bright Butterfly Wall Art
Sunrooms are places where you can invite nature into your home on your terms, without the mess that sometimes comes with it. They're bright and happy places, and there's nothing in nature that says "bright and happy" like butterflies. Since you don't have a lot of room, a lot of your artwork is going to be wall art instead of table and floor pieces, so bright butterfly-shaped wall art pieces like these ones from Amazon will be an amazing addition.
43) Gold Arch Mirror
Gold is one of the best colors to put in a sunroom because it reflects sunlight, and it's the color of sunlight, to begin with. This makes for an amazing combination that makes it feel like the sun is truly in your room. Since you have a small space, you'll want to combine things as much as possible for the maximum effect. We found some instructions from Homedit to help you make gold-painted mirrors that will reflect light from both the mirror itself and the gold edges.
44) Vegetable Cart
If you love gardening, you probably miss it a lot during the winter, but that's one of the benefits of a sunroom! You can garden all year long since the room gets plenty of sunlight and it's nice and warm all year long. Since you don't have a lot of space, we'd suggest getting a vegetable cart like this that you can keep inside during the winter and then bring outside during the warmer weather. This way, it takes up almost no room.
45) Porch Sunroom
If you don't have a sunroom yet, but you want one and have limited room, one thing you can do is take a little bit of your porch space and turn it into a sunroom. This creates a neat sunroom on your porch so that you can easily step outside onto the porch in good weather, and you'll have a dull entertainment area with both indoor and outdoor space for get-togethers. Even a small sunroom on a porch can make winter get-togethers much cozier. If this sounds appealing, you can check out this information on how to set one up.
46) Self-Closing Magnetic Doors
One way to make a sunroom seem more spacious is to get rid of swinging doors, but there are a few different ways you can do that. One neat idea we came across is using these self-closing magnetic doors from Amazon. They don't need to swing outward, so you don't have to worry about them taking up a lot of space, and since they're self-closing, you can make your sunroom feel more like a tent or outdoor space in the comfort of your home.
47) Accent Wall
Since your sunroom has a lot of windows, any decorating you do will be visible outside, so you want it to look impressive the same way you want your lawn to look nice. That said, you don't have a lot of space and probably don't want to use most of it trying to impress the neighbors. You can use this advice from Chatfield Court to make an accent wall, though, so that your sunroom will look nicer without added decorations. We'd love to see a bright yellow or gold accent wall.
48) Semi-Sheer Curtains
Sheer or semi-sheer curtains like these ones from Amazon are an excellent way to create an airy and open feeling regardless of your sunroom's size. They cover the windows for privacy but let in light so that your room continues to feel like an extension of our yard. This is more important in a small room since it makes the room feel like part of a larger space and essentially extends it out into your yard.
49) 3D Tapestry
Since your room isn't that big, there's one aspect of design that you can employ in a way that's unique to a sunroom: big art. Believe it or not, you're better off having larger art than small art pieces because small pieces can make an area seem cluttered. We saw this tapestry and thought that a big, three-dimensional piece like this would not only be an excellent large decoration for a sunroom but add the illusion of depth to the room with its 3D effect.
50) Nothing But Windows
A sunroom should have plenty of windows to let in the sunlight; after all, that's what a sunroom is for, but a lot of windows isn't a very specific plan, and you might be trying to figure out just how much light to let in. If you're doing a complete remodel or if you're willing to do so, then you might want to look at this article from Beneath My Heart. The sunroom in this article has walls that are made completely from windows to create an open feeling and make your sunroom feel like an extension of your yard.
51) Wall-Mounted Brackets
Just because you don't have a lot of room doesn't mean your decor has to be flat and take up as little space as possible. In fact, adding dimension to your decorations means that you won't need as many, so think about adding more depth to your room by getting hanging decorations and things that stand out from the wall. You can even get wall brackets like these to hang your decorations from and mount them above a table so that they're not sticking out into walking space.
52) Black and White
While in most cases you'll want a sunny color scheme for your sunroom, there are exceptions. If yellow isn't your color and bright choices look tacky to you, you can still create an intense look that'll make your sunroom stand out. You'll probably want to make good use of wall color and patterns since you don't have a lot of space for other decorations, but you can design your room like this Meme Hill sunroom with black and white walls to create a bold look.
53) Glass Mosaic End Table
Glass is probably the most important material in a small sunroom because your windows are made from it and because any glass surfaces inside will help reflect the sunlight and make the room feel bigger and more open. You can get glass mosaic pieces like this end table from Amazon that'll stand out and be both a decoration and a practical furniture piece. The glass mosaic is ideal because it should reflect the sun and make the whole room feel brighter and more open.
54) Window Seat on Wheels
Window seats are nice additions to sunrooms because windows are the main attraction, so instead of sitting against a wall and looking out at the world, you can sit right in the sun and bask in its warmth like a contented cat. This might seem like an exaggeration, but if you can already feel the warm sun on your skin, this idea is for you. We've found a tutorial for a window seat on wheels so that you can move out of the way any time you need to and sit in the sun when you want to.
55) Folding Plant Stand
If you're a gardener, you're probably looking for a way to add a few houseplants to your sunroom since it's the perfect place with ample sunlight and warmth, but you might not want to lose the potential seating area. In that case, we'd suggest you get a folding plant stand like this that won't take up much room. Because of the way it folds, it can take up more or less room depending on the space you want it to fit, and it'll still look like it's meant to display plants that way.
How are you planning to use your sunroom? There are so many ways to outfit one, and we can't wait to hear what you've decided on! Help us become part of your decorating crew by telling us about it in the comments below.
