How to Plan a Sunroom Addition | eHow

home section Interior Design Housekeeping Entertaining Home Improvement Gardening & Plants Landscaping eHow Home & Garden Home Design & Decor Home Design How to Plan a Sunroom Addition

F.R.R. Mallory

F.R.R. Mallory has been published since 1996, writing books, short stories, articles and essays. She has worked as an architect, restored cars, designed clothing, renovated homes and makes crafts. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley with bachelor's degrees in psychology and English. Her fiction short story "Black Ice" recently won a National Space Society contest.

View my portfolio

A sunroom is often positioned on the side or back of a house overlooking a yard. The room is designed to receive more sunlight than a traditional room, and it may have windows and doors on two or three sides as well as skylights in the ceiling. Often a sunroom is attached to a family room or kitchen, and doors and windows in the existing house are removed to create access and flow from the house to the new room. Planning and designing a sunroom should be done well in advance of permits and construction.

Measure the rooms adjacent to the area where you want to add the sunroom. Transfer your measurements onto 1/4-inch graph paper.

Draw in the existing windows, doors, steps, walls, fireplaces, niches, openings or any features that impact the sunroom design. Draw in existing features of the exterior that need to be considered in the design process. These features might include the slope of the yard, existing patio or deck, existing buildings, trees, shrubs, the type of material the house is constructed out of, and the design of the existing roof or second story wall that the roof of the new room will connect to.

Tape the floor plan to the table. Tape tracing paper over the floor plan. Sketch in the size and shape of the new sunroom. Draw in the size and position of windows and doors and use a dashed line to indicate the location of skylights. Detail the location of exterior stairs.

Draw how the existing adjacent rooms will change when the addition is constructed. This may include the removal of walls, doors, windows and other features. It may also involve new wiring, plumbing and ductwork to tie the new room into the existing building.

Determine your preferred budget for the addition. Add 10 percent to your budget figure to allow for unexpected construction problems and costs. The other way to figure your budget is to reduce your top amount by 10 percent and establish the lower amount as the actual budget.

Visit link:
How to Plan a Sunroom Addition | eHow