I need ideas - house related

[TrickyBob]

I have a sunroom, it is this big. 

(There was a photo of my house here)

It has it's own entrance, a ton of windows, and my Husband put in a wood floor. 

I want to do something with it, but I don't know what. Right now it's a storage room. It's not big enough to put a ton of things in.

Right now it's also not heated and no a/c. I have an electric heater and we can always buy a window a/c. 

I just don't know what to make a room this size. 

[pixelpassion]

Maybe like a little sitting area for reading? Maybe with a small desk? I've always liked the look of putting outdoor type wicker furniture in sun rooms.

[thinkofthesoldiers]

So you are opposed to putting furniture in it and using it as a sunroom?

[Ohhmm(bligo)]

We have one of those that juts off of our kitchen. We have some patio furniture and a table in ours, we use it as a screened-in eating area.

[TrickyBob]

Jun 14, 2013 19:24:16 GMT -5 thinkofthesoldiers said:

So you are opposed to putting furniture in it and using it as a sunroom?

Well, I didn't know if there were any other interesting ideas to use it for. People use sunrooms for all sorts of things from bedrooms to offices to just sitting rooms. I feel like it's too...small for an actual sunroom. And it's closed off from inside the house and such. I've been to people's houses who have nice big sunrooms or sunrooms that have double or french doors between the main house and it just makes it feel more open and airy. 

[TrickyBob]

I've considered putting the dinner table out there, but then wtf do I use my dinning room for?

Too many rooms create problems for me, lol

[Ohhmm(bligo)]

Well, ours isn't heated or air conditioned either, so we only use it when it's mild. We have just a tiny bistro out there for nice nights.

[thinkofthesoldiers]

Well is it possible to put in french doors? Even smaller ones to open it to the rest of the house? My parents had a house once that had a smaller sunroom off the living room. My mom put a pub height table out there for eating breakfast/drinking coffee and then a comfortable chair and small side table to read in. It was cozy. The french doors looked really cute and kept the cold/heat out.

[Ohhmm(bligo)]

Jun 14, 2013 19:41:29 GMT -5 thinkofthesoldiers said:

Well is it possible to put in french doors? Even smaller ones to open it to the rest of the house? My parents had a house once that had a smaller sunroom off the living room. My mom put a pub height table out there for eating breakfast/drinking coffee and then a comfortable chair and small side table to read in. It was cozy. The french doors looked really cute and kept the cold/heat out.

This is a good idea, and pretty affordable.  We put french doors between our sunroom/dining room as part as the reno.
And it makes our dining room nice and.............



SUNNY.

[TrickyBob]

I'd love french doors but the way our house is built, we cannot cut out for french doors because of the supports for the house. That sunroom is just an enclosed porch, the inside of it has the siding to the house as one wall.

My Husband would love to rip it off the house completely and one of these years, we want to make our house bigger (I'm talking years and years from now, like 10-15, depending on how many kids we have).

I just feel so stuck with this room. I don't want to forever use it for storage but we don't exactly need another sitting room, especially since that room never gets cool in the summer. In order for us to use it in the summer, even just to sit, it'd need a/c. That's the side of the house that gets the full days sun.

[Deleted]

Do you have a pic of the inside? Could you do built-in bench seating under the four windows with storage underneath. You could put a table in there and have that be seating on one side. You could make the seat extra deep and have it be couch-like to read, relax on.

We have a two story porch that is small, and not nearly as nice. We are doing a mudroom on the first floor (it's off the kitchen) and a playroom-later to be walk-in closet on the second floor.

[TrickyBob]

Maybe I need to just take everything out of it, paint the crappy ass (ok, it's not crappy, it IS pretty, but the room is too small for all that wood) wood paneling a nice bright color, put in some pretty curtains and see how I feel. The wood flooring is a light color. 


Right now I look at it and all I see is dark drab 1950's. 


I like the idea of a music room or for computers and such. If it was big enough I'd turn it into a reading room with lots of book shelves but there's no room. 

[TrickyBob]

We've taken the light out and the floor is a floating wood floor. 

[forreals]

I would make it a hammock room. That would be my dream.

[Deleted]

could you do like a little greenhouse almost? lots of plants and some comfortable chairs and small table for coffee? do you like tending plants? otherwise, use it as a 2-3 season sunroom.

protected outdoorish storage is nothing to sneeze at, either. that's useful as all get out.

[TrickyBob]

Jun 14, 2013 19:59:12 GMT -5 forreals said:

I would make it a hammock room. That would be my dream.

Hammock room? Fill it with leafy plants and put in a soundtrack of the ocean? 

[TrickyBob]

I could possibly do a craft room, but craft rooms (to me at least) include wall storage. Which, the room doesn't have a lot of.

I really suck at decorating rooms. And since our house has been in a state of renovation for almost 3 years now, I haven't yet had to decorate anything.

[TrickyBob]

WAIT:

Would any of you turn this into a bedroom? We'd have to get heat into it but my Husband could rig that up somehow. We'd still need a window a/c.

The wimp in me says "that's too many windows, someone will murder you".

But we have 2 bedrooms upstairs, if we have kids, they'd go upstairs. How practical would having a nursery upstairs be with a bedroom downstairs instead of across the landing from each other?

ETA: I found a few websites where people turned them into bedrooms. 

[revolution]

Why am I confused? Can you not enter this room from the main house?

If that door in the pic goes to the inside of the house, I would replace the door with a door that is glass.

We have our porch that is enclosed now. The one wall is the siding from the house, the other walls are all windows. We have a comfy chair out there, some wicker chairs and a pub table. It isn't heated or air conditioned, but we do have a ceiling fan in there. We sit out there and relax while the kids play outside.

[TrickyBob]

Jun 14, 2013 20:22:16 GMT -5 revolution said:

Why am I confused? Can you not enter this room from the main house?

If that door in the pic goes to the inside of the house, I would replace the door with a door that is glass.

We have our porch that is enclosed now. The one wall is the siding from the house, the other walls are all windows. We have a comfy chair out there, some wicker chairs and a pub table. It isn't heated or air conditioned, but we do have a ceiling fan in there. We sit out there and relax while the kids play outside.

That door is the outside door. There is another door that goes into the house, that wall is the one I'd like a french door on to connect to the main house but can't because of how the house is supported. 

[revolution]

Jun 14, 2013 20:25:41 GMT -5 TrickyBob said:

Jun 14, 2013 20:22:16 GMT -5 revolution said:

Why am I confused? Can you not enter this room from the main house?

If that door in the pic goes to the inside of the house, I would replace the door with a door that is glass.

We have our porch that is enclosed now. The one wall is the siding from the house, the other walls are all windows. We have a comfy chair out there, some wicker chairs and a pub table. It isn't heated or air conditioned, but we do have a ceiling fan in there. We sit out there and relax while the kids play outside.

That door is the outside door. There is another door that goes into the house, that wall is the one I'd like a french door on to connect to the main house but can't because of how the house is supported. 

AH, ok.  So replace the door to the main house with a door with lots of windows in it.  Half a french door.  Put a screen door on the outside door.  

It is really nice to have sunroom to just sit in.  Make it comfy and enjoy with a bottle of wine and a thunderstorm.

[thinkofthesoldiers]

For the heat/ac you could do one of those panisonic kind that attach to the walls. Not sure if they do a combo unit or if you would have to install two separate, but might be easier than running duct work to the room.

[Deleted]

Jun 14, 2013 19:54:27 GMT -5 TrickyBob said:

If it was big enough I'd turn it into a reading room with lots of book shelves but there's no room. 

But it could be.  The space between the four window wall could have floating shelves.  They wouldn't be wide, but they would still hold quite a few books.  Make a corner shelf! then line the siding wall with shelves.  Let the books be your wall covering.  Float a chair or two in the space and you have a reading room.