A three-season room is a great way to ensure you can enjoy your outdoor space whatever the weather and, with summer on the way, it’s the perfect time to start the process rolling. With the costs of moving at an all time high, the obvious step is to make better use of what we own – adapting our garden ideas and patio ideas to the functional and fun needs of modern life. Whether you want a classic design to blend in with the architecture of your home or a sleek glass structure that makes a contemporary statement, this is our guide to the best three-season room ideas
Three-season room ideas – 8 sunrooms that blur the boundaries between outdoors and in
Three-season rooms (also known as sunrooms or screened porches) will make a stunning addition to your home, bringing in light, providing extra living space and allowing great views of outdoor areas as the seasons change. Here’s our guide to the best three-season room ideas, with advice from the experts.
1. Create a space to sit back and relax
Now that modern building techniques and technology ensure that three-season rooms maintain a constant temperature, they can be used comfortably throughout the seasons. This three-season room was designed as a multi-purpose space, acting as both a quiet reading area but also as a general relaxing area for the family to socialize and entertain.
2. Increase value with a sympathetic structure
‘A well-designed three-season room with a sympathetic structure can complement the existing architecture of the house while adding to saleability and value of the property,’ says Mark Wild, designer, Malbrook Conservatories. Three-season rooms can benefit city homes, too. In this property, sliding doors on the lower ground floor extend the relaxed living area into the backyard, designed by landscape designer Luciano Giubbilei.
3. Blur the boundaries between indoors and outdoors
Glass has the ability to make the most dramatic difference to a home – possibly more so than any other material. ‘It is part of a desire for modernity and the fact that everybody likes natural light,’ says architect Ben Adams of Ben Adams Architects (opens in new tab). ‘The idea of blurring the transition between inside and outside and of being connected to the backyard is so very appealing. And it is glass that allows us to enjoy the garden for twelve months of the year, rather than three, even without insulation.’
4. Design a place for year-round entertainment
Since those days, design, technology and engineering have moved on apace, making the once-traditional three-season room one of most flexible rooms in the modern-day home. Heat control glass and specialist blinds ensure the space is comfortable to use all round making it suitable for home office, play room, dining room, to open up into a kitchen or to use as a family room. The informality of a three-season room is perfect for modern-day living, as interior designer Steven Payne of Maison AD explains: ‘I’m often asked to design conservatories that open up the back of older houses. Well-planned three-season rooms and garden room ideas bring the outside inside so that even on chillier days you can still enjoy a sense of being outdoors.’
5. Create calm with a white decorating scheme
Careful styling and clever color choices can transform a three-season room into a true restful retreat from which to enjoy the glorious patio views. Take inspiration from your surroundings by using a palette that is grounded in nature. Not only will the room feel more serene, but will allow the indoor-outdoor lines to blur. Evoking purity and cleanliness alongside confidence and sophistication, white is a wonderfully versatile color for three-season rooms, and can work in just about any style of space.
6. Choose the right glazing
The keys to designing a three-season room that is comfortable year round, and that isn’t an energy drain for the house as a whole, are to ensure good insulation and to use energy efficient glazing. Thanks to technological advancements, there are many specialized and high performance glass options now available. ‘The type of glass best suited to your project will be determined by its structure and direction in which it faces,’ says Stephanie Hill. ‘Glass is now a very sophisticated material,’ says Tom Pike, partner at Giles Pike Architects. ‘Glass-to-glass technology, which permits minimal framing, and double glazing have moved on so much, it is now possible to create dynamic structures made almost entirely of glass.’ For Giles, the ability to blur the transition between inside and out and create a strong connection to the garden is immensely appealing, so much so that most of his company’s projects now involve a glass structure of some form. ‘It is no longer the case that these spaces are too hot in summer and too cold in winter; they really can be comfortable all year round,’ he says.
7. Introduce greenery into your three-season room
Green room ideas promise to renew your connection to nature and is said to evoke feelings of balance, vibrancy and good fortune, so why not an a touch of green living to your three-season room with house plants? Three-season rooms are the perfect opportunity for plant parents to show off larger specimens of plants that might not fit in around other areas of the house. ‘One of the great advantages of a three-season room is that they are usually so well lit,’ says foli8’s (opens in new tab) plant scientist, Kenneth Freeman. ‘This means that your house plants will seldom be wanting for natural light.’
8. Invest in a glass extension
An individually designed, contemporary ‘glass box’ can make a dramatic addition to a home. ‘With this type of three-season room extension, you can create an almost entirely uninterrupted view of your backyard, or even over the hills or towards the sea,’ says Stephanie Hill, design director of Trombé. ‘This link with the outside and the feeling of light and space make it a great option.’ For Stephanie, the advantages of this type of design lies in its unobtrusive framework, which is kept to an absolute minimum by the use of sliding doors, and vast panels of glass: a single double-glazed unit can measure up to 6m by 3.2m in size.
What is a three-season room?
Popular among garden enthusiasts, three-season room ideas were built to hot house their beloved exotic plant collections. ‘Traditionally separated from the rest of the house by a set of external doors, the classic bolt-on three-season room is increasingly being designed as an integral part of the house, used as an addition to the main ground floor living and dining space,’ says David Salisbury, whose company makes bespoke three-season rooms.
How do you build a three-season room?
A three-season room will need to be constructed by an architect, so it is important to think carefully about how you will use the space beforehand. ‘Along with the trend towards using the room as an integral part of the living space, we are experiencing more demand for three-season rooms, which can be more versatile and thermally efficient,’ says David. Nowadays, these structures are not necessarily made of glass, as uPVC is sometimes chosen as a low-maintenance and more affordable alternative. As for other materials, timber is favored for its sustainable qualities, traditional looks and choice of painted finishes, and aluminium for its minimalist and sleek style, strength and anti-corrosion properties.
