My husband built a porch on one of our old trailers a few years ago. Nothing as fancy as your room, but he put those clear "tin roof" panels on part of the porch and colored on another part. Believe me, in the area covered with the colored panels were much, much cooler in the summer than the clear panels. He used the green color, and I would recommend the color panels over the clear ones. The green gave enough heat without being excessive. I don't know if this helps you or not. We are in zone 5.

We are just moving into our new room on the south side of our house. It has 9 foot ceiling and French doors almost all the way, wall to wall, facing south. The doors have transoms which let in more light than just the doors would have. Outside, to keep the heat out, we built a 10 foot deep porch and extended the steep peaked roof out over the porch. So with all the doors and blinds closed, we can still see out through the transom to the sky via the peaked roof. Any glass roof/ceiling will kill you. You might consider the Solatube. A friend has several in her house and they really do allow a lot of light and zero heat. I was amazed. We also used the Sherwin Williams low emissivity paint under the roof deck. That seems to have made a difference. We have one window facing east and no windows facing west.

jane ny, I was in a similar situation last year. For me the sequence was paint first, then flooring, then baseboards, But it looks like you may have baseboards already installed. Painting first worked for me because I did it myself and there were spatters on the subloor before I was finished. You might want to check on whether your subfloor is indeed covered with plywood, because you may need an underlayment before installing your floor, depending on what you choose. Best to check where you buy the flooring. With some help from a friend who knew what he was doing and owns a Skill Saw, I installed a plywood underlayment in less than two hours. I too wanted tile with a slate or similar look, but the room was already over budget (long story) and I chose to spend my money on high end French doors because the floor could always be changed later. I got some advice from the flooring forum while deciding. You can always post a message there before you proceed. We narrowed floor choices down to either loose-laid sheet vinyl or vinyl tiles. My friend chose the tiles because the color and pattern seemed to fit well in the sunroom/porch. The original intention was to keep those tiles for about a year while I shop for tile and find a good tile installer. But the floor has held up well, despite some abuse like beach sand, rain coming in when some airhead (

We installed doors off of two upstairs bedrooms that go out onto a deck/porch that is a flat "roof" over a downstairs veranda. What should we use to waterproof the upstairs "deck" which is tongue in groove 2x1 ? Thanks.