If you’ve been considering adding extra space to your home and you love the idea of a room filled with natural light, a sunroom or a screen room could be a great way to go. But which one would should you choose? While sunrooms and screen rooms have some similarities, they are not the same. Let’s take a look at what makes each special and figure out how to decide which would be best for your home.
What Is a Sunroom?
A sunroom is also called a four-season room because it is fully enclosed and temperature controlled. That means you can use it all year-round, even in the midst of Minnesota winters. The walls have large windows to allow plenty of natural light to stream in, making sunrooms great for growing indoor plants and activities like reading and crafting.
What Is a Screen Room?
A screen room is essentially a patio that is screened in instead of remaining open to the air. While it is not temperature controlled, it offers homeowners a place to enjoy the fresh air outdoors without the hassle of insects. Screen rooms can be a great place for entertaining guests or creating a secondary dining area.
Sunroom vs. Screen Room: Things to Consider
Before making your decision to add a sunroom or a screen room to your home, you should think about it carefully. Here are a few things you may want to consider before making your selection:
How You Want to Use It
Both rooms will provide extra living space for your home. But it’s important to think about how you want to use that space. Are you looking for a place to casually hang out and sip a drink, enjoying a nice breeze, or are you looking for a hobby room? A sunroom acts like another room to your home but has lots of sunlight. A screen room is more like a patio or porch that has some protection from the elements.
Your Budget
As with any home remodeling project, it’s essential to keep your budget in mind. The difference in cost between sunrooms and screen rooms can be significant. Because of the materials and labor involved, a sunroom can cost you three or four times as much as a screen room. However, the result is an insulated room that you can use year-round vs. a screen room that you won’t use much during Minnesota winters.
Indoor vs. Outdoor
Are you looking to improve your outdoor living space, so you have a great spot to sip coffee on cool mornings and relax while listening to and smelling the rain? If so, you probably want a screen room. But if it’s extra interior living space you want, a sunroom is the better fit.
Two Great Options
Whether you go with a sunroom or a screen room, you’ll be adding extra living space to your home as well as extra home value. But, to get the maximum use and enjoyment out of your new addition, you’ll want to weigh the pros and cons of each and choose the right one for you and your home.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Home Pro America. We are certified contractors that can install both sunrooms and screen rooms. We’d be happy to help you figure out which would be the best fit for your home in the Twin Cities metro area.
