A sunroom is the hardest room in the house to decorate, because it is really a greenhouse with furniture in it. Everything fades, the temperature swings twenty degrees between morning and afternoon, and half the walls are glass. Style it like a living room and it will look tired within two summers.
Mine faces south west, which sounds wonderful and means it was unusable between two and five all summer. The fix was not more furniture. It was a blind at the top of the glass, one large plant in the hot corner and swapping cotton cushions for outdoor fabric, which together cost less than a chair.
Below are fifteen tips for styling a sunroom that still looks good in year three, working from the practical decisions to the finishing ones. The first four deal with light, heat and fade, because those are what wreck these rooms. The rest are about making it feel like somewhere you want to sit.
Why A Sunroom Needs Different Rules From A Living Room
Ultraviolet light is the first difference and the one people underestimate. Direct sun through glass fades textiles, bleaches timber and yellows white paint far faster than in a normal room, and south facing glass can take a bright cushion to a pale ghost of itself in one summer. Material choice matters more than colour here.
Temperature swing is the second. A glazed room heats fast, loses heat just as fast after dark, and that daily cycle moves timber, splits veneers and lifts laminate edges. Solid timber, metal, ceramic and rattan handle it. Chipboard furniture does not.
Then there is the view, which is the whole reason the room exists. Every decision should protect the sightline out, so low furniture, open weaves and glass topped surfaces earn their place while tall bookcases and heavy curtains fight the room. Keep the eye travelling outward.
| Condition | What survives | What fails |
|---|---|---|
| Direct UV | Solution dyed acrylic, wool | Cotton, linen, cheap dyes |
| Heat swing | Solid timber, metal, rattan | Veneer, laminate, chipboard |
| Damp in winter | Ceramic, stone, powder coat | Untreated MDF, paper shades |
| Glare | Top down blinds, sheers | Heavy lined curtains |
| Cold nights | Wool, rugs, thermal blinds | Bare tile, single glazing |
What To Sort Out Before You Buy Any Furniture
Track the sun for a full day before deciding where anything goes. Note the hour the room becomes uncomfortable and where the hot patch falls, because that spot decides the layout more than the door position does. Most sunrooms have one corner nobody can sit in between two and five.
Then check the floor. A sunroom floor takes garden dirt, wet feet and strong sun, so porcelain tile, engineered timber rated for conservatories or a good vinyl all work, while solid hardwood cups and gaps with the humidity swing. Get this right before furniture arrives.
Decide what the room is actually for. A morning coffee room, a plant room, a reading room and a second sitting room all want different furniture, and trying to be all four is why so many sunrooms end up as storage. Pick one main use and let the rest follow.
1. Fit Top Down Bottom Up Blinds On The Worst Glass
Glare control is the decision that makes a sunroom usable, and top down bottom up blinds are the best answer I have found. They let you cover the upper glass where the sun comes through while leaving the lower half clear, so you keep the view and lose the heat. Nothing else does both.
Fit them on the glass that actually causes the problem rather than every window. Usually one or two panes are responsible for the afternoon glare, and covering everything makes the room dim and defeats the point of building it. Watch first, then buy.
Choose a light filtering fabric rather than blackout. Filtering fabric knocks back the harshness and keeps the room bright, while blackout in a sunroom creates a strange dark box in the middle of the day. Pale colours reflect more heat too.
What It Costs
Made to measure is usually necessary, because sunroom glazing is rarely a standard size and gaps at the edges let the glare straight through. Cellular or honeycomb fabric costs more than plain pleated and does noticeably more for the temperature, which makes it worth the difference. Ask for a sample of each before deciding.
Fitting is a straightforward job with a drill, but check what you are drilling into first. Fixing into a glazing bar or a frame profile needs the right screw and sometimes a spacer, and cracking a sealed unit is an expensive mistake. Check with the installer if the frames are still under warranty.
2. Choose Outdoor Fabric For Everything Soft
This is the single tip that saves the most money over time. Solution dyed acrylic, the fabric used for good garden furniture and awnings, keeps its colour under UV for years, while an indoor cotton or linen cushion in the same spot fades visibly in one season. It costs more per metre and lasts five times as long.
Buy it for cushions, seat pads and any upholstery in the sun. Modern outdoor fabrics are much softer than they used to be and many are hard to tell from indoor cloth by touch, so the old objection has largely gone away. Order a sample and sit on it if you are unsure.
Check the label rather than trusting the description. Look for solution dyed acrylic specifically, since fabrics described as fade resistant are often just printed polyester, which fades in stripes wherever the sun hits hardest. The difference shows in year two.
How To Judge It Before You Buy
Ask for a sample and put it on the sunniest windowsill in the house for a month, with half of it covered by a book. Lift the book off and the difference between the two halves tells you everything the label will not. A month is enough to separate the good from the merely marketed.
Squeeze it and see how it recovers. Good outdoor fabric feels dry rather than plasticky and springs back, while stiff coated cloth stays creased and gets uncomfortable to sit on in the heat. Bare legs on a hot coated seat are miserable in July.
3. Bring In One Large Plant Rather Than Six Small Ones
A sunroom is the one place in the house where plants genuinely thrive, and one large specimen does far more than a collection of small pots. A mature olive, a large fiddle leaf fig, a bird of paradise or a tall palm gives the room structure and shade in the hot corner. It also looks intentional.
Put it where the sun is hardest. The corner nobody can sit in is exactly where a big plant wants to be, so the problem spot solves itself and the plant filters some of the light for everyone else. This is the neatest fix in the whole list.
Use a heavy pot and a saucer. A tall plant in a light plastic pot will go over the first time a door slams, and water running onto a timber floor from an unsaucered pot causes the sort of damage nobody notices until it is bad. A deep glazed saucer costs very little.
When To Skip It
If nobody in the house waters things reliably, skip the statement plant and use two or three tough ones instead. A sansevieria, a ZZ plant and a rubber plant will forgive a fortnight of neglect, and a dead olive in the corner looks far worse than no plant at all. Tough plants also cost a fraction of a mature specimen.
Very hot glazed rooms also scorch plants that would be fine anywhere else. Leaves pressed against the glass burn, so leave a gap of at least 20 centimetres between foliage and pane. Turn the pot a quarter every few weeks so growth stays even.
4. Keep The Furniture Low And Open
Furniture in a sunroom should never interrupt the view. Low backs, slim frames and open weaves let the eye run out to the garden, while a high backed sofa across the glass turns the room into a corridor with a bright end. Keep anything tall against the solid wall.
Rattan, cane and powder coated metal all suit this room better than upholstered furniture, because they cope with the heat swing and they read as light. A cane armchair in front of glass is almost transparent visually, which is exactly what you want. Solid upholstered backs block the same view completely.
Leave space to walk to the doors. Sunrooms usually have a door to the garden and a door to the house, and the route between them has to stay clear or the room becomes a place you pass through sideways. Keep about 70 centimetres of clear route.
How To Judge Scale
Tape the furniture footprint on the floor before buying, including the chairs pulled out. Sunrooms are usually smaller than they feel when empty, and a standard three seat sofa will swallow a typical one entirely. Two small chairs usually beat one large sofa here.
Sit on a dining chair in the space and look out. That is roughly the sightline you will have from a low chair, and it tells you quickly whether a piece of furniture would block the best part of the view. Do this before ordering, not after delivery.
5. Lay A Washable Flat Weave Rug
A rug softens what is usually a hard floor and stops the room echoing, which glazed rooms do badly. A flat weave in wool or a good indoor outdoor polypropylene handles dirt from the garden and can be shaken out or hosed down. Skip anything with a thick pile.
Choose a mid tone rather than pale or dark. Pale rugs show every bit of garden dirt within a week, dark ones show dust and sun bleaching, and a mid tone with some texture hides both. This is a room where practicality wins.
Size it to the seating rather than the room. A rug under the chairs defines a sitting area and leaves the traffic route to the doors bare, which keeps the dirt where it can be swept rather than walked into the pile. A bare route also dries faster in winter.
What Goes Wrong
Rugs fade in stripes where the sun crosses them, and by the time you notice it cannot be corrected. Rotate the rug end for end twice a year, which takes two minutes and keeps the fade even across the whole thing. Put it in the calendar with the clock changes.
Damp is the other issue in winter. A rug on a cold tile floor in an unheated sunroom holds moisture underneath, so lift it occasionally and let the floor dry properly. Once a month through winter is enough.
6. Add A Ceiling Fan Rather Than A Portable One
A ceiling fan is the cheapest way to make a hot sunroom usable, and it takes no floor space in a room that has none to spare. Moving air makes a room feel several degrees cooler without cooling it, and in winter a reversible fan on low pushes warm air back down from the apex. It earns its keep twice.
Check the ceiling structure before ordering. Glazed roofs and lightweight polycarbonate cannot take a fan, so it usually needs mounting on a solid section or a purpose built beam. This is worth confirming before you buy anything.
Choose blades in a pale timber or white to keep it visually quiet. A large dark fan under a glass roof reads as a silhouette all day and draws the eye up when the interest is out through the windows. Pale blades disappear against a bright ceiling.
When To Skip It
If the roof is fully glazed with no solid section, a fan is not practical and a good pedestal fan on a timer is the sensible answer. Roof vents or an opening rooflight do more for a glazed roof than any fan can. Hot air leaves at the top or it does not leave at all.
Low ceilings rule it out too. Under about 240 centimetres a ceiling fan feels oppressive and is genuinely a hazard with anything tall, including a raised arm. Measure to the blade, not to the ceiling.
7. Use Blinds Or Sheers Rather Than Curtains
Heavy curtains in a sunroom look wrong and work badly. They need wall space that does not exist, they hold damp in winter, and drawn back they cover the glass you paid for. Blinds sit inside the frame, and unlined sheers give privacy while keeping the room bright.
If you want fabric at the glass, use a light unlined linen or cotton voile hung on a slim rod. It softens the hard edges of glazing bars and moves in the breeze from an open door, which is half the pleasure of the room. Light fabric moves, heavy fabric just hangs.
Keep them off the floor. Fabric touching a sunroom floor picks up garden dirt and stays damp in winter, so a hem that stops a couple of centimetres clear is the practical choice here even though it breaks the usual rule. Nobody notices the gap once the fabric is hanging.
What Goes Wrong
Sun rots unlined fabric at the leading edge over a few years, and the damage always shows first where the fabric is folded back. Rotate the panels left to right occasionally so both edges age at the same rate. Swap them when you rotate the rug and it becomes one job.
Condensation is the winter problem. Fabric resting against cold glass on a January morning gets wet and eventually mildews, so leave a gap between the sheer and the pane. A slightly deeper rod bracket is all it takes.
8. Bring The Palette In From The Garden
The view is doing the decorating in this room, so the palette should agree with it rather than compete. Greens, sand, stone, terracotta and off white all sit comfortably against a garden, and they look right in the strong light that makes indoor colours look garish. Take the cues from outside.
Avoid cool greys and blue whites. Under bright natural light a cool grey sunroom reads as cold and slightly clinical, which is a strange effect in the brightest room in the house. Warm neutrals hold up far better.
Use a stronger colour on something small and replaceable. A pair of cushions or a throw in a deeper green or ochre gives the room life, and since these are the first things to fade you will be replacing them anyway. Treat them as a two or three year item.
How To Judge The Colour
Look at samples in the room itself at midday, not in the hallway. Colours look completely different under unfiltered daylight, and a paint that reads as soft cream elsewhere in the house can look almost yellow in a sunroom. Paint a large patch rather than trusting a chart.
Check them at dusk too. A sunroom goes dark quickly once the sun drops, and colours that sing at noon can look flat and grey under lamplight in the same room. Check the sample again at nine in the evening.
9. Plan Proper Lighting For The Evening
Sunrooms are designed around daylight and then become useless after dark, because most have one central fitting or nothing at all. Two or three low light sources at different heights turn the room into somewhere you sit in the evening rather than a dark box beyond the kitchen. This is the most overlooked decision here.
Use plug in fittings if wiring is difficult. A floor lamp beside a chair and a table lamp on a low unit cover it, and rechargeable table lamps have improved enormously and need no cable at all in a room with few sockets. Most now run several evenings between charges.
Aim light at surfaces rather than out through the glass. At night the windows become mirrors, and a bright fitting facing the glass reflects straight back at you and kills any view of a lit garden. Aim lamps at a wall or into the room instead.
What It Costs
Lighting a sunroom well is one of the cheapest changes in this list, since two lamps and warm bulbs cost very little. The expense only appears if you want new circuits, which in a glazed room usually means surface trunking or lifting a floor. Plug in lamps avoid the problem entirely.
Outdoor rated lights just outside the glass are worth considering instead. Lighting the garden means the room keeps a view after dark, which is more valuable than another lamp inside. Two spike lights on a tree do the job.
10. Add Solid Shade Overhead If The Roof Is Glass
A fully glazed roof is the main reason sunrooms overheat, and blinds fitted to it are expensive and awkward to clean. External shading does far more, since it stops the heat before it comes through the glass. An awning, a pergola or a planted vine over the sunniest section changes the room completely.
Internal roof blinds are the fallback where external shading is not possible. They cost more than window blinds and gather dust on the upper surface, so plan on being able to reach them for cleaning. A blind you cannot reach never gets cleaned.
Reflective film is the cheap option and it is a genuine compromise. It cuts heat and glare noticeably, and it also dulls the view slightly and gives the glass a tint you cannot undo without replacing the film. Try one pane before doing the whole room.
What It Costs
External awnings are the largest single cost in this list and the biggest improvement in a room that overheats badly. A planted vine on a simple frame costs almost nothing by comparison and takes two or three years to do the same job. A deciduous vine also lets the winter sun back in.
Roof blinds sit in the middle on cost and need cleaning twice a year. Factor that in, because a dusty roof blind above your head is very visible on a bright day. Every mark shows when the sun is behind it.
11. Choose A Small Round Table Over A Rectangular One
Most sunrooms are not big enough for a proper dining table, and forcing one in ruins the room. A round bistro table for two, around 70 to 80 centimetres across, gives you somewhere for coffee, a laptop or breakfast without occupying the whole floor. Round also has no corner to catch a shin.
Place it in the brightest spot rather than the middle. Morning sun on a breakfast table is the best thing a sunroom offers, and the centre of the room is usually better left clear. Breakfast in the sun is the whole point of the room.
Pick a top that copes with sun and damp. Powder coated metal, ceramic and solid timber all survive, while a veneered or laminate top will lift at the edges within a couple of years in this environment. Run a fingernail along the edge of anything you are offered.
When To Skip It
If the room is the main route to the garden, a table in it becomes an obstacle you edge around several times a day. A narrow console against the wall with two stools underneath gives you the same surface without blocking the route. The stools tuck away when nobody is using them.
Skip it too if the room is genuinely small, under about 6 square metres. In that case two comfortable chairs and a side table make a better room than a cramped table and chairs nobody uses. Comfort beats capacity in a small glazed room.
12. Repeat Natural Materials Rather Than Adding Colour
Texture carries a sunroom better than colour, partly because texture does not fade. Rattan, jute, terracotta, unglazed ceramic, timber and linen give the room depth in strong light, and they age into something better rather than going pale and tired. That is a rare quality in a room this bright.
Repeat two or three materials rather than using eight. A jute rug, rattan chairs and terracotta pots is a coherent scheme, while adding wicker, seagrass, bamboo and cane on top just reads as brown clutter. Repetition looks deliberate.
Let things weather. Terracotta develops a salt bloom, timber silvers, rattan darkens, and all of that suits this room, which sits halfway between inside and out. Fighting it with annual refinishing is a losing battle.
How To Judge It
Photograph the room in black and white to check the texture balance. Colour hides a flat scheme, and a monochrome photograph shows immediately whether you have real variation in surface or just several things in the same beige. Most phones will do the conversion for you.
Touch test the materials as well. A room that reads as natural but is mostly plastic imitations feels wrong in a way people notice without identifying, especially in bright light where the sheen gives it away. Real materials cost more and read as calmer.
13. Deal With The Floor Junction To The Garden
The threshold between a sunroom and the garden is where these rooms usually look unfinished. A level or near level transition, with a drainage channel and matching or complementary paving outside, makes the room read as connected to the garden rather than tacked onto the house. It is worth doing properly.
Use a matwell or a heavy bristle mat inside the door. Garden dirt is the main enemy of a sunroom floor, and a recessed mat catches it before it reaches the rug. Brush it out onto the patio once a week.
Keep the outside paving in the same tonal family as the floor inside. Identical materials are not necessary and often not possible, but a grey floor meeting a warm buff patio makes the join look like an afterthought. Take a sample of the inside floor out to the paving merchant.
What It Costs
Retrofitting a level threshold is a proper building job with drainage implications, so it belongs in a bigger project rather than a decorating budget. If the step already exists, a well chosen mat and matched planting either side does most of the visual work for very little. Save the building work for a proper renovation.
Planting is the cheap trick. A pot on each side of the door, inside and out, reads as continuity and costs the price of two plants. Use the same pot in two sizes if you can.
14. Add One Piece Of Storage With A Lid
Sunrooms accumulate garden clutter faster than any other room, because they sit on the route in from outside. One closed storage piece, a bench with a lid or a lidded rattan trunk, gives the secateurs, the gloves and the plant food somewhere to live. Without it they live on the windowsill.
Put it by the garden door where the clutter actually lands. Storage in the far corner does not get used, and things end up on the nearest surface regardless of how good the storage looks. Put it where the mess already lands.
Choose something that copes with damp. Rattan, painted timber and powder coated metal are all fine, while an upholstered ottoman in a room with a garden door will smell within two winters. Damp gets into the filling and never leaves.
What To Buy First
If you buy one thing for a sunroom, this is a strong candidate, because clutter does more damage to how the room looks than any decorating decision. A bench with storage also adds seating, which most sunrooms need. One piece doing two jobs suits a small room.
Measure the lid clearance under the windowsill. Lift up lids that catch on a sill are the standard annoyance, and it is easy to miss when you are measuring the footprint. Check the height with the lid fully open.
15. Leave The Best View Uncluttered
The last tip is about restraint, and it is the one people find hardest. Whichever window frames the best view of the garden, keep it clear of plants on the sill, hanging baskets and furniture backs. That view is the reason the room exists, and it is remarkably easy to bury it.
Plants on a windowsill halve the light and block the outlook, so put them on the floor or on a low unit instead. The room still reads as green and you keep the view, which is the better trade in almost every sunroom. Plants also grow better away from scorching glass.
Then keep one wall or corner free of furniture entirely. Glazed rooms feel calm when they are underfilled and cramped very quickly when they are not, since there is so little solid wall to absorb things. Furniture in a glazed room floats rather than sitting against something.
How To Hold The Line
Sit down and look out before you place anything new. Standing up, most furniture seems fine, and the view from a low chair is the one that matters in a room built for sitting in. Standing height flatters almost any layout.
Photograph the room from the doorway when it looks right. Sunrooms drift towards being a plant store and a boot room, and comparing that picture three months later shows exactly what has crept in. The drift is always gradual.
What Styling A Sunroom Costs
Shading and fabric take most of a sensible budget, and both are the things that determine whether the room is usable and whether it still looks good in year three. Furniture matters less here than in other rooms, since simple rattan or metal pieces suit the space better than expensive upholstery would. Save the good sofa for a room with walls.
The cheap wins are unusually strong. A rug, two lamps, outdoor fabric cushions and one large plant transform a sunroom for a modest total, and none of them requires any building work or a fitter. Start there before you price an awning.
The table below gives relative costs across a typical sunroom rather than fixed prices, which vary by size and glazing type. Use the ratios rather than the totals. Scale it to your own room.
| Element | Relative cost | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| External awning or pergola | The largest line | High if it overheats |
| Made to measure blinds | High | High, glare comes first |
| Outdoor fabric cushions | Moderate | High, saves money later |
| Ceiling fan, fitted | Moderate | Worth it in summer |
| Rug, lamps, storage bench | Low to moderate | Do these first |
| Large plant and pot | Low | Highest payback per pound |
The Mistakes That Make A Sunroom Unusable
Ignoring the heat is the mistake that empties these rooms. A sunroom nobody can sit in between two and five in July is a corridor with furniture, and no amount of styling fixes it, so shading and ventilation come before decoration every time. Solve the heat and the room gets used.
Using indoor materials is the second. Cotton cushions, veneered furniture, paper lampshades and untreated MDF all fail quickly in this environment, and replacing them twice costs more than buying the right things once. The environment is closer to a garden than a living room.
Overfilling is the third. A sunroom has very little solid wall, so furniture floats in the middle and every extra piece blocks either the view or the route to the door. Two chairs, a small table, a plant and storage is a complete room. Anything beyond that has to earn its place.
The One To Watch For Long Term
Fade is the slow failure, and it is uneven fade that ruins things rather than fade itself. A cushion that pales evenly looks weathered, while one bleached in a stripe where the glazing bar shadow falls looks broken, and by the time it shows nothing can be done. Dye does not come back.
Turn and rotate everything soft on a schedule. Cushions flipped and rugs turned twice a year age evenly, which is the difference between a room that looks relaxed at five years old and one that looks neglected. Two minutes twice a year covers it.
Conclusion: The Decisions That Make A Sunroom Work
If you do three things, control the glare, buy outdoor fabric and put one large plant in the hottest corner. Those three make the room usable, stop it looking tired in two summers and solve the problem spot, which is most of what a sunroom needs. Everything else on this list is refinement.
Then keep the furniture low, open and sparse. The view is the best thing in the room, and every decision that protects the sightline out through the glass makes the space better, while every tall or heavy piece works against it. Judge every purchase from a seated position.
Plan the evening as well as the day. Two warm lamps and a lit garden turn a sunroom from a daytime space into a room you use at nine at night, which doubles its value for the price of a couple of fittings. Light the garden as well and it doubles again.
Frequently Asked Questions About Sunroom Decorating
How do I stop a sunroom overheating in summer?
External shading works best, so an awning, pergola or planted vine over the sunniest glass. Inside, top down blinds and a ceiling fan or roof vent make the biggest difference.
What furniture is best for a sunroom?
Rattan, cane, powder coated metal and solid timber, kept low and open so the view stays clear. Avoid veneered or laminate pieces, which lift at the edges with the humidity swing.
Which fabrics do not fade in a sunroom?
Solution dyed acrylic, the fabric used for quality outdoor furniture, holds colour for years under UV. Ordinary cotton and linen fade noticeably within a single summer on sunny glass.
What flooring works in a sunroom?
Porcelain tile, engineered timber rated for conservatories, or good vinyl. Solid hardwood cups and gaps as the humidity and temperature swing through the year.
How do I make a sunroom usable in winter?
Add a rug, thermal or honeycomb blinds and a heat source, then deal with condensation by ventilating on dry days. Wool textiles make a cold glazed room feel far warmer than it is.
Should I put plants on the sunroom windowsill?
Better on the floor or a low unit. Sill plants halve the light, block the view and often scorch where leaves touch the glass on hot afternoons.