There comes a point when you’ve lived in your home long enough that you’ve done all the decorating projects that you thought about when you bought the property, but you still yearn for something new and different. A full home extension costs too much money, and there’s only so much work you can do in your garden before getting to the same point of ennui. This is when you want to start thinking about a sunroom.
How Does A Sunroom Work?
At its most simplistic, a sunroom is a boxlike room that sits directly out the back or side of your home. It’s a full room, with solid walls and usually an A frame or studio roof to keep the Calgary snow off in the winter. The main feature is that each wall comes with large windows, and normally one wall has patio style doors to lead directly out into your garden. It’s a great home extension because it can be built directly on top of your existing deck or patio, meaning that you don’t have to worry about the expense or mess of digging extra foundations.
Benefits Of A Sunroom In Calgary
Investing in a Calgary sunroom is smart for a variety of reasons. From a resale point of view, it has one of the highest return on investment rates, and even in Calgary’s larger homes, a sunroom can offer a significant percentage increase in your square footage. Beyond the financial aspect, there are personal benefits to building a sunroom while you’re still planning to live in the house.
A quiet space
Many people set up their Calgary sunroom as a child-free zone, making it one of the only rooms in the house where there’s peace and quiet, and no mess. Even if you do allow your kids into your new space, you can set up rules to keep it as a quiet and relaxing corner of the house. A sunroom works perfectly as a home office as you can set it up with everything you need for a quiet and productive working atmosphere, and you’re able to close the door behind you to create a more formal separation between home and work.
Free heating
The big glass windows let in plenty of sunlight and heat during the day, and resting this warmth throughout the evening. If you keep the doors that connect your sunroom to the rest of your house open, you’ll find the heat from your new space can keep the rest of your house warm during the spring and fall months, drastically reducing your energy bills. You can add to the natural heating properties of your sunroom with a few additional tweaks. Putting in either double or triple glazed windows will help retain the heat during the winter as well as reduce heat escaping in the collier evenings of fall and spring. Thick drapes and rugs also help to keep things toasty well into the night and add a sense of luxury to your new space.
Stunning views
Your sunroom will give you unparalleled views over the beautiful scenery in your garden. Calgary is fortunate enough to get seasons that change drastically, so your sunroom will give you the front row seat to the fresh winter snowfalls, the first signs of spring, your garden in full bloom, and the colourful autumn foliage. Make the most of the big windows by installing a full size mirror on the internal wall of your sunroom. Not only will this make your sunroom feel lighter and brighter even on a rare Calgary cloudy day, but you’ll also create the sense of space in your room.
Getting The Right Aesthetic
Once you’ve committed to the idea of a sunroom, it’s important that you connect with the right sunroom contractor to help you master sunroom aesthetics. A good sunroom contractor will be able to walk you through the entire design process to help you create a custom sunroom that makes the most of your space while fitting to your sunroom budget. Some important aesthetic considerations that your sunroom contractor will talk with you about include:
- Window placement – choosing the right placement for your sunroom windows will have a massive impact on the overall aesthetic of your sunroom. A classic option is full floor to ceiling windows around the whole sunroom, which will give you more of a greenhouse or conservatory feel, while if you’re after something more cosy, consider a few big windows with half height walls. This latter option gives you places to hang things on your wall and install shelves, turning your sunroom into more of a living room.
- Roof shape – while the shape of your roof will be in part dictated by local planning laws and the overall shape of the rest of your house, there’s still some flexibility here. The usual design is an A frame roof to allow plenty of air to circulate, but for smaller houses or a more snug feel, a studio roof that slopes away from your home will give you more skylight options.
- Lighting options – finally, you should be talking with your sunroom contractor about how you want to light your new sunroom. This is important because they’ll need to incorporate it into the electrical plans. Most people choose some sort of overhead lighting, whether it’s a big central light with a fan attached for those hot Calgary summer days, or spot lights over where you want to put the seating. For a more intimate aesthetic, ditch the big lights in favour of uplights on the walls coupled with a couple of lamps on the end tables. This will create a variety of light and dark spaces in your room as well as giving you control over where to put people’s focus.
Here at Desert Sun Patios, our sunroom contractors have decades of combined experience in sunroom aesthetics, and you only have to come down to our downtown Calgary showroom to see the high quality work that comes with every project. So call in today to start your sunroom project.
