How many people have added porches/sunrooms to older home?

12 years ago

I like the size of our farmhouse, but when we remodel, I'd like to add an enclosed sunroom/porch. One that has windows on two sides, that open with screens, so that breezes go through and we can enjoy the outdoors. While a deck is nice, living on a farm, you get a lot of unwanted and unexpected visitors...especially at night!

We'd also like to include a wood stove in this space, so that we can enjoy it during the winter, too. It would be about 23' x 15' and the corner would face west...so shorter side faces southwest and longer side faces northwest. It's not ideal, but it's the best view and conveniently located near the kitchen.

Does anyone have anything similar? Do you have any pictures or suggestions? The roof will be a gable, no skylights (we think it would be too hot) but we do plan to have a separate greenhouse, for starting plants for the garden. Thanks in advance :)

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Comments (3)

Carol_from_ny
12 years ago
We are in the process of adding on a porch. In our case it was a way to get rid of a sometime water problem we had in the basement and the ugly" Wizard of OZ storm cellar doors" near the primary entrance to the house and to fix what was there and falling apart. Apparently we are not the first to change out this porch area.
When the construction first began we found at least two if not three other parts of porches that had been in that space. This is the first time however that it's been made as large as it is. We went from the end of the house to the inside corner.
The space is going to have a short wall with windows that open and close with screens. I found six old window/screen sets at a reuse place which saved us a ton of money. We also found a door for the space for free from a friend who had changed some things around in his home cand whose wife wanted the door gone last year! Both the windows and the door fit the age and style of the house.
The storm cellar doors have been removed and a hidden flush with the floor door is being constructed.
We tried hard to make our new porch look as much like it belonged there as we could.
We ever get it done I will post pics.
3sis
12 years ago
We added a sun room onto our old house. It sits on top of a cement patio and has french doors which open into the kitchen. The north and west walls are windows and the south and east walls are interior walls. It is approximately 15' by 20'. My husband wanted to put in a wood stove, but we were advised against this for two reasons. One, it would get too hot and the second was that it would take up too much room. So we put in an electric baseboard heater and we love it. We can shut the french doors on really cold days, but we use this room almost year round We also installed two ceiling fans.
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NC, I went back and looked at your original question and I have a couple of thoughts that may be helpful to your thinking about what you want to do. I think you and I have been through some of the same initial processes. We spent months trying to figure a way to make our small space bigger. Given the house configuration (basic 1450 sq. ft. rectangle w/attached garage at the kitchen end) and the property (huge tree out back that is NOT being cut down), there was no reasonable way to make that happen. Once we came to that conclusion, it also became apparent that our stove would remain 30" and the fridge 33" max. I had to give up on the Stages 45 sink - sniff. A 32" sink was as big as I could go, and I'm OK with that. Like your window into the sunroom (I suppose someone enclosed a porch at some point?), some things just are. So you're absolutely right, just maximize what you have to work with. If it were me, I'd prioritize having adequate space for prep and for plating up. If moving your sink to the windowless wall and maybe forgoing the prep sink gives you that, it will probably be worth it. Tasteful decoration, (even if it's not my quail), can make that a visual winner. You mentioned something about your pipes which makes me think you have, mmm, antiquated plumbing. Sooner or later, one has to deal with antiquated plumbing. Speaking of which, have you considered the state of your electricals? Bumping ours up from 1970 to current was not a small undertaking. After that comes the all important storage space. In our case we were highly motivated to lose the cabinets over the peninsula, but we still needed to find space for the necessary kitchen stuff. In part we dealt with that by making the decision to change out the old cabinets for both more space in the cabinets, but also a better cabinet configuration. We chose faceless cabinets (vs. face frames) for just that little bit of extra space that may make all the difference. We also designed out the blind corner cabinets - good riddance! - and added in a cabinet pantry. And lower drawers, love those. For future buyers: when your place is sold someday, you're likely to have one of two kinds of buyers. One buyer will be the young family who has just scrapped enough money together to buy a house at all and will bless you for a good and useful design. Take a bow. The other buyer will be a couple with money for significant renovations who won't care about the kitchen because they're going to tear out the funny sunroom and make a huge living space with a kitchen featuring a $7000 stove and an $8000 fridge (or whatever that is in future dollars). In either case, design this kitchen for you and your family and make it work best for you.
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calliope
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We installed a functional, commercial lean-to greenhouse with plexiglass panels against one ell of our house. Put in a gas fireplace and it is heated in winter and used year round. It is 12 x24 and multifunctional now. We keep it heated in winter, at one time it was used as an office for my business, and forced into use as a place to overwinter nursery stock for propagating. Since my business has been phasing down and is now phased out we simply use it now as a great buffer zone against the elements. My back door and two other household doors remain open to it year round. I have a fountain in there and hang ferns in winter. It has brick floors and is a great transition room from our outdoor activities to inside activities.......home for coat racks, boots and animals who shoot out our back door without leashes, lol. Gets a good amount of solar gain and helps our heat bills too. We have a ventilator fan at its apex to pull out heat, have a shade cloth we can use in summer, and a storm door for the outside entrance, so we can screen in summer. I can't imagine not having it now and it's a lot handier than the creaky old back porch we pulled off. It's like having both functional outdoor and indoor space added.

How many people have added porches/sunrooms to older home?

Comments (3)

Carol_from_ny

3sis

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