New House Inspiration: Sunroom

Can I just begin by saying how excited I was about having a sunroom?

One corner of the sunroom

I loooove the sunshine. During the cloudy and cold winter months, I definitely get depressed and don't feel well without the sun around. Having a room where I could enjoy the sun for most of the year without getting rained on just seemed like a perfect situation to me.

However, Pete wasn't as excited about a sunroom as I was, and he was thinking about turning it back into a covered deck. The room isn't insulated, so we wouldn't really be able to use it any longer than a deck would be, so it's just a wasted space in the winter. To turn it back into a deck, we'd pull out all the sliding glass doors that make up the windows in the sunroom, add some supports to hold up the roof, and put in a wood deck floor above the current concrete floor. I definitely saw the potential in this as we'd have an outdoor eating space and a place for grilling (as we didn't know where the grills would go), and thought this would be just as great of a space as a sunroom would be.

I looked up some inspiration, and thought some of these ideas would be amazing!

I really liked the curtains around the deck sides for privacy as well as the lights strung along the ceiling for mood lighting:

I liked the lighting for this one as well, as well as the privacy screen created by the trees. The dining area as well as a seating and relaxing area is really really nice, too!

While I was a little sad about possibly giving up my sunroom, it made sense to turn it into a deck. The grill would be right outside the future kitchen, it's less work than updating the sunroom would be, and we really like having an outdoor hang out space.

Buuuuut, my husband is full of surprises. He mentioned that keeping the sunroom might not be such a horrible idea, that with a little work, we could definitely transform it into a four season room (it's currently a three season space), and even have part of it be a greenhouse area for growing some things during the winter.

Genius.

So, you know what came next, I turned to Pinterest and looked up more inspiration!!!!

While this look is a little too messy for my taste, I really love the idea of a hammock chair by the plants. We are obsessed with our hammock, and getting to sit in a hammock during the winter while being surrounded by plants? Bye bye depression!!!!

I thought this was really cute for a corner of the sunroom! I can see herbs being grown like this:

This was my favorite idea: shelves installed in front of some of the windows! The big wall of the sunroom faces south, and I can see even one set of the sliding doors having plant shelves in front of them. Spinach, green onions, and lettuce would be happy here!

For the rest of the room, I'd love to take some of the deck ideas and bring them inside, like having the lights still hung on the ceiling and some indoor/outdoor furniture for eating and relaxing:

I also loved the idea of curtains being hung! It would be great for privacy, more insulation, and just giving it a more finished and homey feel.

The main problem with keeping the space as a sunroom is that we still don't have a space for grilling. We have two grills (propane and charcoal) as well as a smoker.

We looooove grilling.

Yes, they can live in the garage and be pulled out into the driveway to be used, but we like grilling year round. Having to pull them out into the garage without a roof to protect from the elements is not an ideal situation, so I wanted to find something that would work without turning into a super big project.

While this isn't completely perfect, I really liked adding a deck space attached to the sunroom space. I love the pergola idea (and the lights! oh the lights!!!! must get lights!), but that doesn't really help with the grilling while being protected issue. Adding a little roof (or a clear roof like in the top deck idea picture) could easily remedy that, though!

The next reveal is the current kitchen space, which will come out on Tuesday. What would you like to see after that? We have two bathrooms, dining room, living room, kid's play space, office, laundry room and (I forgot this before, oops!) the entrance/mudroom left!