The summer months in Calgary have both pros and cons in your trailer. On the plus side, the small floor size means that it’s relatively easy to keep everything cool if you have some form of air conditioning, and there’s something glorious about having sunlight hit just about every room in your home. On the negative side, your home can heat up quickly if it’s not well insulated, and you can feel cramped if it’s too hot to go outside during the day. This is when you need to think about adding some extra space to your mobile home to make the most of your park model during the summer and beyond.
The Benefits of a Sunroom for a Park Model
Adding a sunroom to your trailer truly enhances your summer experience. A sunroom has big windows on all sides of the room, so when you place it on the south facing side of your mobile home, you are guaranteed to have sunshine and warmth in your sunroom all summer long. It can connect to your mobile home via one of your external doors, so you can be sure of some peace and quiet on those days when everyone is inside.
Traditional Sunroom Uses
The major benefit of expanding your trailer with a sunroom is that you are significantly adding to the square footage of your home. The big windows will give you beautiful views out over the rest of your property as well as keeping your new space bright and warm even on the cooler nights at the end of summer. You’ll find that there are many ways to use your new space, but these are the most common ways to make the most of your sunroom:
- Additional living room – the most popular way that Alberta park model trailer owners use their sunrooms is as an additional living room. This might be a replacement for your main living space which will free up room in your old living room for something else, or it might be a whole new living room experience. Many people make this their more formal living room with nicer furniture and a set up more geared towards conversation than watching TV. However, it can also be a great opportunity to create a room just for your kids to play in; the fact that you can shut the door on the noise of the chaos is a big bonus!
- Formal dining room – in keeping with the theme of using your mobile home sunroom for entertaining, another common usage for sunrooms is as a formal dining room. This approach gives you much more room for a longer dining table and fancier chairs, and in the same vein as the living room, you can either make your new dining room more adult friendly with nicer chairs and furnishings, or cater more for the kids so they have somewhere to eat while the grown ups hang out elsewhere. No matter what kind of dining experience you end up choosing, make sure you find a quiet morning for a cup of coffee with the morning light in your sunroom – there’s nothing quite like it!
- Zen yoga studio – finally, the rise of home yoga workout apps means that setting up a space in your mobile home for yoga is becoming increasingly popular. The natural sunlight and warmth that comes from the big windows in your sunroom makes it the perfect place to create your zen yoga studio. All you need to get started is a mat and some calming music, but you can easily go all out on decorations, diffusers and yoga straps and blocks to help take your practice to the next level. Being able to shut the door to the rest of the house will make your yoga time a truly meditative experience.
Alternative Ways to Use Your Trailer Sunroom
You’ll only have so many options in terms of the location and size of your park model add-on. It will be important to talk about your options with your sunroom contractor, who will want to look at the position of your home in regards to the property lines and access doors, as well as working with you to get the most number of big glass windows possible. If you’re looking for alternative options to make your sunroom stand out as the key feature of your park model, there are a whole range of ways to use your sunroom beyond just a quiet place to enjoy the summer warmth:
- Plant room – with the current trend for exotic house plants showing no sign of slowing down, you’ll find your sunroom the perfect place for your green babies that need more warmth, sunlight and humidity. Consider shelves just below the windows so that your plants get the most of the Calgary summer sunshine. You can also have plants hanging down from above the windows to allow you keep more plants in your trailer sunroom.
- Home gym – if working out is your jam, then you’ll be amazed at how well a sunroom works for a home gym. Not only do you get a whole bunch of extra space for all of your equipment, but the warmth from the sunshine will give you a “hot” workout every time. In exercise terms, this means that you’ll burn more calories as well as soaking up all the extra vitamin D.
- Guest bedroom – finally, summer is always a good time to get friends and family together, but having people stay over can be tricky with the space confines of a mobile home. By turning your new sunroom into a guest bedroom, you can start to host more, and your guests will love waking up to glorious Calgary sunshine each morning. With a bit of clever design, you can double the guest bedroom as a living room with fold out couches and end tables that double as storage for your guests. You may also consider adding blinds or curtains to your windows and patio doors.
