There are times when your home seems too small for all the people inside it. Even during the summer, when it’s easy to get outside and have a break from each other, there are still rainy days and lazy mornings when you just need a relaxing retreat away from the world to recharge. Your bedroom is the obvious choice, but it can make you feel cooped up to spend all day in there. This is when you need to think about a home extension to give you (and the rest of your family!) some extra space. A screen room is a budget friendly option that also helps bring the outside into your home.
Key Features of a Screen Room
A screen room is an additional space for your home that typically sits where your house meets your garden. For most people, this will be directly out back, and you can save money if you can build your screen room directly onto your deck or patio as you won’t have to worry about digging foundations.
A screen room is a simple structure at heart; regularly spaced out posts hold up a solid roof, and the walls are made from mesh screens. You can choose to have a half wall, where wooden boards go a metre or so up to provide more protection, or simply have floor to ceiling screens for more breezes and sunlight. They typically have an external door at the opposite end to where your screen room joins your house so that you have access to your garden.
Creating a Relaxing Retreat in your Screen Room
Your screen room should be viewed as a blank canvas for you to design and use however you see fit. To create a relaxing retreat to give you some peace and quiet away from your family, consider some of these design tips:
- Minimal seating – it can be tempting to buy a full patio set of chairs and loungers for your screen room, but this invites people to come and join you. Instead, think about a couple of comfy armchairs or a recliners so at best you’ll have one other person sharing your quiet space with you.
- Think soft – to get yourself into full relaxation mode, you should be looking at soft fabric for your furniture (the screens and roof keep any rain and debris away), and you should have a healthy stack of pillows and fuzzy blankets for early morning coffee and late night reading throughout the warmer months.
- Final touches – to finish up your relaxing retreat, think about adding a Bluetooth speaker so you can play your chillout playlist, as well as some low level lighting to set a calm atmosphere in your screen room. Most importantly of all, make a poster advising noisy people to keep out when you’re in there, and you’ll have the most relaxing summer ever in your screen room.
