Anyone with a sunroom in Calgary knows that summer is the best season to have a sunroom in the city. Calgary is known for having the highest number of sunny days in all of Canada, meaning that you’ll always get a lot of natural light in your space, while the structure gives you summertime protection from the breezes that gives Calgary the nickname of The Windy City. It’s easy to take your sunroom for granted each year, however, so make this the year that you revitalize your space and turn your sunroom into a summer oasis.
Make Use Of Your Sunroom’s Key Features
Your sunroom has some key features that you’ll want to use as you revitalize it as a summer oasis. Firstly, the big windows let in lots of natural light, so you’ll want to rearrange things to benefit from all that sunshine. Secondly, the glazing in the windows allow heat in during the day and trap it during the evening, so you can stay warm and comfortable all day long. Plan for long summer days in your sunroom with comfy furniture and soft furnishings. Finally, your sunroom has a door that can close it off from the rest of the house, so you don’t have to make it fit with your home’s aesthetic. It can act like a blank canvas for you to unleash your interior design creativity.
Sunroom Design Principles
To turn your sunroom into a revitalizing summer oasis, you need to give yourself some design principles to focus on as you’re planning your interior decorating project. You’ll want to add some touches of luxury to make it feel magical, and you’ll want to upgrade your soft furnishings to make everything feel comfortable and relaxing. Here are 3 easy to implement design ideas to make your sunroom into a summer oasis:
- Reposition the furniture – the main reason why your sunroom works so well during the summer months is that it lets all that beautiful natural sunlight into the space. However, most people treat their sunroom like an additional living room where all the furniture faces inwards towards a central point like a coffee table or fireplace. Change the dynamic by turning your seating so it faces the windows. Not only will this create a feeling of peace and serenity by putting the view into your garden right in your face, but you’ll also find it makes the room feels quieter as people will go in there to sit and think instead of socializing.
- Add texture with drapes – while covering up your windows feels a little like it’s defeating the purpose of your sunroom, leaving them completely undressed can make your sunroom feel spartan. Add a feeling of luxury by framing the windows with thick drapes. Not only will this added texture make your room feel more inviting, but the drapes will also act as heat traps during the day, allowing you to keep the sunroom naturally warm well into the evening hours.
- Integrate some greenery – finally, your sunroom summer oasis makes it the perfect location for your plant babies who need plenty of sunlight and heat but who can’t be outdoors in the wind. Plants also help to generate higher oxygen levels in a room, as well as increasing serotonin levels through their grace and beauty. While you can simply add your plants in big pots wherever there are gaps around the walls, you can add a sense of luxury and adventure with climbing plants hanging from the tops of the windows or growing from pots on hanging shelves.
Picking a Summer Colour Palette
Another way to revitalize your space for the summer months in Calgary is to completely change the colour scheme in your sunroom. The best way to think about choosing the right colour palette is to think about a base colour that you’ll paint the walls, and then find complementary tones for your soft furnishings and art work.
Cool Summer Tones
Summer always brings to mind a sense of calm; a break from school for your kids, often a time of vacation for you and a break from the seemingly endless winter months for everyone. To fit this vibe, pick cool pastel tones such as a gentle peach or pale pink to bring some cool colour to your space. You can then use these colours in your soft furnishings to create a luxurious vibe and make your sunroom feel like the perfect place to cool off on those hot Calgary summer days.
Bold Strokes
If you prefer your home decor to be striking and powerful, you can switch up the colour palette and pick out the more vibrant summer colours: a strong yellow to match the endless days of sunshine, a range of greens to match the growth in your garden or a turquoise or teal to match dreams of the seaside. If you choose to paint with one of these bolder colours, you’ll want to accent it with softer, more neutral shades so as to not overwhelm your space. A better choice would be to whitewash your walls and use your bright summer palette as a theme for your soft furnishings and artwork to create a dazzling visual contrast for your guests.
Floral Patterns
Finally, summer in Calgary sees the city’s gardens explode with growth, and you can use this as inspiration to revitalize your sunroom space to create a unique summer oasis. When you start to look into possible designs, you’ll see that you can get everything from simple vines to full on jungle scenes to fit your overall home aesthetic. One option is to find a print you like as wallpaper to give that floor to ceiling look, and you can then find colouring accents to match the flowers on the walls. Alternatively, you can paint the walls in the accent colour and use the floral prints on your throw cushions and artwork.
