You want to extend your sunroom, or maybe you don’t have one yet, and you want to use a sunroom to get more room for your house. After all, these rooms are great ways to bridge the gap between the outdoors and indoors. The problem is, you need some Sunroom Extension Ideas to help you design the perfect area for your needs. Check these ideas out to see if they’re right for you.
1) Extend Existing Room
Your sunroom doesn’t have to be a completely separate space from the rest of your home. The purpose of the room is to let in sunlight and give you a beautiful space to enjoy even during bad weather. You can design a sunroom like the one in this picture to extend your home’s living space by removing the wall between the sunroom and the home. This is a great way to make your entire home feel closer to nature, though you’ll have to heat the entire sunroom year-round since you don’t have a connecting door.
2) Greenhouse
Your sunroom doesn’t have to be a lounge next to your living room or an alternate place to sit when your porch is too cold during winter. If you like gardening, think about adding a greenhouse to your kitchen. A sunroom collects sun just like a greenhouse, and if you design it right, you can have a warm indoor garden connected to your kitchen. You can read more about greenhouse sunrooms in this article to decide if they’re the right fit.
3) DIY Bar
What can you put in a sunroom extension? They’re great places to lounge around, but if you already have a sunroom or living room, you want your extension to have something unique to offer. One way to do so is to have a home bar sunroom. You can build a bar using the directions in this video by Co-Know-Pro, and add bar stools and a comfortable seating area to create a complete home bar room with a view for gatherings.
4) Cedar
Before you start building, you’ll have to decide on the right materials to use. While pine may be standard, there are plenty of options for a more attractive sunroom. Unlike many rooms, a sunroom’s design isn’t just about how it looks. It’s also about how the sun feels and even smells. This makes it a great place to use cedar, because it’ll both smell and look nice, and you might have more exposed wood that you wood in a typical room in your house. To decide whether cedar is the best choice, read this article by Northern Log.
5) Retractable Awning
Your sunroom is a great way to experience the outdoors without going outside, but there’s a reason you want access to the outdoors. When you add your extension, think about adding an awning over the sunroom door to keep the area dry and clear of snow. A big awning like this retractable one from Amazon would give you extra space to sit if you wanted to move from the sunroom to the yard. This is great for parties that spill outside, or if you like to eat outside sometimes, but want shade and comfort.
6) Solarium
Solariums are often confused with greenhouses, but they’re actually two different types of rooms. Greenhouses are places to grow plants, while solariums are living space. That said, solariums are great places to grow plants since they have arched ceilings and are made entirely of glass. They hold in heat and absorb sunlight for comfort while allowing you to grow food year-round. You can read this article by Family, Food, and Garden to learn more about the benefits of a solarium or a lean-to greenhouse like the one the writer made.
7) Convert Porch to Sunroom
You don’t necessarily have to build an entirely new area just to get a sunroom for your home. If you’re planning a sunroom extension, but hardly ever use your porch, think about turning your porch into a sunroom instead of extending the existing sunroom. This will save money, and you can watch this video to learn how to make a porch or patio into an enclosed sunroom. You can use the video to do it yourself or hire a professional.
8) Three Seasons or Four Seasons Room?
There are a few basic sunroom types, and before you make your extension, you’ll have to think about what kind you have. Does the extension need to be all-season, or will a three-season room for spring, summer, and fall work? Four-season rooms are a part of your home, while three-season rooms can be more like enclosed porches, so which one you choose will depend on how much you want to use it. To make it feel like a true home extension, you’ll likely want a four-season room. You can use this article to decide which is best for you.
9) Barn Doors
When you add a new sunroom as a home extension, or when you add to an existing sunroom, you’ll need to decide how it’ll connect to the rest of the house. Will it be a three-season room with an exterior door so that the cold doesn’t get into the rest of the house during the winter? Maybe you have a four-season room that’s heated year-round, and you can pick any type of portal you like. Consider using a barn door like this to create a rustic, barn-like feeling.
10) Yoga Studio
Sunrooms are a great environment for exercising because they bring in natural, healthy light that clears your mind and helps you focus. They’re great for yoga in particular because the natural light that comes in will heat up the room if you do hot yoga. This is particularly effective in a solarium since it has windows on the ceiling, with almost nothing to block sunlight. Whether you do hot yoga or a different style, you can feel like you’re exercising outdoors by building a yoga studio solarium using the advice in this article.
11) Porch-Sunroom Combination
If you’re debating between extending your house with a sunroom or adding a new porch, you can do both at the same time. Design your sunroom like a porch by using outdoor furniture like the furniture in the images. Instead of creating a porch, you can build it with windows and design walls that resemble porch railings. This way, it looks and feels like a porch in some ways while keeping out the elements and gaining the bright and cheerful benefits of a sunroom.
12) Vented Roof
If you like nature, sunrooms are great ways to view it from inside during winter, but they can feel stifling during the summer when you’d rather be outside instead of just looking out. When you design your sunroom extension, you may want to add a roof vent like the one in this picture to bring in fresh air during the summer and warm spring days. Talk to a contractor to make sure the vent won’t leak during rainy or snowy months.
13) Sitting Room
A sitting room is one of the simplest uses for a sunroom extension, no matter what room you extend it from. You can attach it to the dining room so that people have a more comfortable place to chat after a meal or add extra seating for a living room or bedroom. Watch this video to learn how you can build a gorgeous sunroom sitting area off of a master bedroom. A sunroom sitting area is a great way to complete a master bedroom by adding seating and making the room feel like a suite instead of a single room.
14) Attached Pergola
If you have a sunroom but want to make it bigger, one way to do so is to attach a pergola instead of building a new room. If you’re still building the sunroom, the pergola like this one from The Home Depot will be a great way to shade the entrance when you want to so as to create a covered patio for when you want to be outside. Add a few tables, chairs, and a retractable awning to protect from the rain, and you can have a sunroom year-round with a useful extension for summer months.
15) Pool Room
If you’re adding to your sunroom and you have a large yard, you can get creative with your sunroom extension. Think about adding a large solarium and pool room like the one in this picture. The room will be heated by the sun on sunny days, and you can open the wall from your sunroom or house to give yourself open access to the pool from inside. Make sure to decide ahead of time whether you’ll be using it year-round or closing it during winter, because a large solarium may be difficult or expensive to heat.
Where are you adding your sunroom? There are many styles and locations for them, and we’d love to hear about your unique space and needs. Tell us all about it in the comments below!
