| Author |
Message |
    
shoshannah
Citizen
Username: Shoshannah
Post Number: 296
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 11:49 am: |     |
That pesky little room separated from the living room by French doors is charming, but is it functional? Mine is 8'x 15'. Too small to be a family room (why should the four of us squeeze in there while a large living room sits idle?), but too exposed to be an office (don't want to see that mess from the LR). How do YOU use your 1920s sun room? How is it decorated? I'd love to get some ideas. |
grw
Citizen
Username: Grw
Post Number: 198
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 12:11 pm: | |
Nice white wicker furniture, lots of plants, maybe a bar???? |
Bjp
Citizen
Username: Bjp
Post Number: 217
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 12:38 pm: | |
Playroom.
|
bobk
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 3818
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 12:43 pm: | |
The real estate people are now calling these appendages "Maplewood Rooms", which is a good way to try to make a sows ear into a silk purse. I think these rooms are better suited to a 1920s life style where they were, I am pretty certain, used mostly as a plant room and summer sitting area.
We use ours for a computer room/office and as a secondary TV room. If it was a little longer we could have a bowling alley. |
1-2many
Citizen
Username: Wbg69
Post Number: 572
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 12:58 pm: | |
reading/music room. |
shh
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 728
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 2:57 pm: | |
We knocked ours down and rebuilt a slightly wider, longer version open to the dining room/kitchen so now we have a great room. (And closed off one door from the living room).
Ours was 8 x 15 too. One time I took our dining room table, put it on it's side, got two legs through and adjusted it to get the other legs through thinking we could use it as a formal dining space, because the light was so nice. You could barely squeeze around the table though, (I did this by myself while my husband was at work.) so then I had to move it again. : (
I like it much better now.  |
greenetree
Supporter
Username: Greenetree
Post Number: 1819
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 4:27 pm: | |
Ours is a sitting room. We have Palladian doors in that room, and the original screens. So, in he Spring, early Fall & rainy summer day, it is our screened porch. We put floating shelves up & it houses my grandomother's tea cup collection, my Lallique fish collection & other treasures. There is a bar with crystal decanters & one ultra-comfy chair w/ ottoman & reading lamp.
That chair has become the favorite place of one of our kitties. Of course, we don't have kids & have a separate den, so we have the luxury of having this room just for reading. |
Jackie Day
Citizen
Username: Zoesky1
Post Number: 184
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 4:36 pm: | |
I don't have a Maplewood room, but many of my friends who do use theirs as a small TV room with two club chairs on one end and the TV built in on the other end. Kids sit on cushions on the floor. It works because their kids are all still quite young and the whole family doesn't watch TV at the same time yet. |
amandacat
Citizen
Username: Amandacat
Post Number: 307
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 5:02 pm: | |
Ours is even smaller than 8x15, it's actually 7'6" x 12'4", and a good 6" of that 7'6" is taken up by the chimmney. We've kept it pretty much as the previous owners (who had great taste!) had it, with painted beadboard ceilings, a ceiling fan, wool berber carpet on the floor, and sheetrocked walls on three sides with newer windows; the wall with the chimmney is shingled and painted the same color as the outside of the house. We find it makes for a perfect office; it is closed off from the living room by a french door and has electic baseboard heat for winter use.
I've recently been fantasizing about taking the back four feet or so and turning it into a powder room, accessible through the (now reduced) office. Anyone know anyone who has put their M.R. to such a use? Of course, I'd really love to do what Shh did and end up with a powder room (or, dare I dream, full bath) and a decent sized family room, but that's obviously a much more complicated fantasy . . . |
shh
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 729
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 5:49 pm: | |
A neighbor of mine did that, amandacat. Their room was a little bigger than ours, but they took over about 3 feet from the length of the room and the full width and added a bath with shower. That door is pretty much centered with the toilet on one side, shower on the other and sink when you walk in. The rest of the room has a small desk and a tv on either side of the bathroom door and a small sofa when you first walk in.
Our job didn't include a bath, just wide open space—a novelty in these houses, IMO. |
poster
Citizen
Username: Poster
Post Number: 31
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 8:29 pm: | |
Actually, we have the original architectural plans from our 1926 house and that room is labeled as the sun parlor.
Ours is a tv/playroom and it is very small at 12x7 or so. |
compsy
Citizen
Username: Compsy
Post Number: 85
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 8:42 pm: | |
Ours 9 x 12 was behind the living room fireplace, accessible through 2 open archways on either side of the fireplace, and window-ed almost all around, with shelves on the side towards the "back" of the house. It ended up as an extra sitting room with one short couch along the short dimension, and two chairs facing the couch. I had an extension of my office phone in that room, so I could "pick up" calls without going upstairs, and still be somewhat separate from the living room. It was a great room to sit and read in, or for two or three people to visit in. When we had large gatherings, we set up extra chairs and "tv" tables along one or both of the long walls, and as many as 8 or 9 people could eat there, buffet style. Mainly it was a great room to view the outside from, with views of both streets that comprised our corner...it's one of the rooms I miss the most about that house.  |
compsy
Citizen
Username: Compsy
Post Number: 86
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 8:45 pm: | |
oops...sorry...i should have figured out a way to make the pictures smaller, and above and below each other, rather than side by side. Dave--I hope I didn't screw things up a little.... |
virgilian
Citizen
Username: Virgilian
Post Number: 133
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 11:21 pm: | |
Sun and Sleeping Porches in Sinclair Lewis's "Babbitt" were important signifiers of 1920's materialism and middle-class conformity.
Luxuriate in their utility-free middle-brow-ed-ness, if your lifestyle doesn't include seed-starting and wintering container plants. Most of these rooms correctly face south, or south-something, and were used for winter gardening. |
virgilian
Citizen
Username: Virgilian
Post Number: 134
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 11:22 pm: | |
Also, many of these were open or screened porches before being glazed. |
bella
Citizen
Username: Bella
Post Number: 395
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 9:13 am: | |
Having a background in architecture, I hate to see anyone put a great room in this style house (my apologies to those who have, or wish to do so.) It ruins the integrity of the original design, and it just smacks of the "McMansions" that developers like to build. (what's next, putting cathedral ceilings in a Dutch colonial? blech!!!!!!!!) |
shoshannah
Citizen
Username: Shoshannah
Post Number: 301
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 11:03 am: | |
Was that the original purpose of these rooms? Winter gardening? Can anyone shed more light (pun intended) on the original purpose of the sun room? |
xavier67
Citizen
Username: Xavier67
Post Number: 295
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 11:57 am: | |
As Virgilian pointed out, they were open or screened-in porches. |
bobk
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 3826
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 12:09 pm: | |
A lot of the houses were built with these porches enclosed. We have owned two of them. Very few screen porches are built over basements, which is the case with the vast majority of 1920s houses I have visited. |
us2innj
Citizen
Username: Us2innj
Post Number: 897
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 12:10 pm: | |
While I don't believe our 11' X 18' sun room was ever screened, it was not usable in the cold of winter. Even though there was a radiator in there, it was too small to heat the room without making the rest of the house 95 degrees. We heavily insulated the room, and removed the radiator from the rest of the system. We put in a blue flame heating system that makes the room nice and toasty. It is our primary living space now, because it has the TV and comfy sofa. |
mem
Citizen
Username: Mem
Post Number: 2238
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 2:23 pm: | |
My house was built in 1916, and it has one of these tiny porches facing south with french door. I keep most of my plants in there, as well as a drawing table and my computer. I am considering making it even more of a sunroom by having floor to ceiling windows installed all the way around. |
shh
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 733
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 2:42 pm: | |
Ok Bella, I won't take that personally... 
...but I think there's a need for compromise. There's a way to ADJUST the layout of these homes without violating them completely.
I'd rather lose a little of the homes integrity and be able to chat with my guests while I prepare a meal, or supervise my kids' homework or crafts while making dinner, than be in a 10x12 kitchen all alone everynight.
With three kids, my home isn't big enough to have an 8x14 space sit unused.
I have a background in interior design and I never walked into a space I wouldn't change around to fit my family's needs. |
bella
Citizen
Username: Bella
Post Number: 398
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 2:59 pm: | |
Shh, maybe I'm just a little touchy about this subject as of late. I was just home in Maplewood and was horrified to see that the current owners of the house my great grandparents built had taken out almost all of the windows of the screen porch. It's a house on Schaefer Rd. I won't mention the house number, but it is to the left of the brick house between Jacoby and Newark Way. Go past it, as a designer you'll probably hate what they did too. I shudder to think of what they've done to the chestnut woodwork through out the house.
On the other hand, my father turned a screened-in porch at the back of our house on Plymouth Ave into a sunroom that was open to the kitchen. That worked out really well and didn't have an adverse impact on the feel of the house. Again, not mentioning house numbers (remember the thread about the house on Ridgewood?), it's the house to the left of Tom Reingold's if you want to check that out. |
shh
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 734
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 3:23 pm: | |
Bella, I totally understand. Don't know Schaefer, but have lots of friends on Plymouth. (Not sure exactly where Tom lives though.)
|
deborahg
Citizen
Username: Deborahg
Post Number: 716
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 4:35 pm: | |
Back to the Maplewood rooms: We finished ours (12 windows! Whooee!), added awnings on three sides, and now use it as a family room. A sectional sofa takes up two walls, TV and videos/toys along the third (French doors are the fourth--they lead to the dining room). The 10 x 11 room is definitely cramped, but with so much light and the nice squishy sofa it's everyone's favorite room in the house. |
mim
Citizen
Username: Mim
Post Number: 301
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, November 14, 2003 - 2:37 pm: | |
The good light in our Maplewood room makes it a great arts/crafts studio! We have a family room elsewhere in the house, so it is wonderful to use this space for all the family's projects. Seating is minimal, but we have lots of worktop space, shelving, etc. Very practical for us. |
Lydia
Citizen
Username: Lydial
Post Number: 181
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, November 14, 2003 - 5:40 pm: | |
The house I grew up in had a sunroom (Maplewood rooms, whatever...)
We used it as a fair weather room. We started seedlings by the windows in March, we ate breakfast out there from June to around September, It had a small bookshelf and a comfortable chair and hanging ferns. It was one of my favorite quiet places to read. It was a nice nuetral room for anyone who wanted a calm and airy space. In the winter we sort of shut if off from the rest of the house and I think my mother sometimes stored apples and potatoes there. It was definitely where the unwrapped Christmas presents were hidden.
Most of the "winterized" sunrooms I've seen make the houses seem sort of lopsided. More often then not people use them as teensy TV rooms and rarely use their living rooms.
Mem - I love your sunporch, it is perfect with the rest of your house. The nicest use of one I've seen yet.
|
argon_smythe
Citizen
Username: Argon_smythe
Post Number: 94
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 2:35 pm: | |
This might give you some ideas.
From www.m-w.com, Merriam-Webster's reference site:
--------------------------
The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the Dictionary search box to the right.
Suggestions for maplewood room:
1. nephrologies
2. nephrologists
3. Newfoundlands
4. mobilizations
5. meperidines
6. mobilization
7. mumble-the-peg
8. nephrologist
9. meprobamate
10. meprobamates
I personally plan to convert mine into a "mumble-the-peg" room next weekend...
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Phil
Citizen
Username: Barleyrooty
Post Number: 718
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, November 17, 2003 - 5:58 pm: | |
think: rooms to sit in in summer before the advent of A/C |
newtoallthis
Citizen
Username: Newtoallthis
Post Number: 74
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 8:37 am: | |
We have two small rooms like this. One is in the front of the house and one in the back (since I'm in SOrange, does that make them SOrange rooms I wonder?). Both have lots of windows. We turned the front room, which has french doors and was once a screened porch, into a sunroom (gotta plug Wicker Outlet in WOrange for our furnishings). The back room is smaller and has one wall dedicated to a built-in book case and the other to a radiator. We have ordered a chaise for that area to create a cozy reading area. |
mem
Citizen
Username: Mem
Post Number: 2270
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 2:33 pm: | |
Lydia,
Thanks - I wish I could spend more time in there |
mtierney
Citizen
Username: Mtierney
Post Number: 428
Registered: 3-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 4:54 pm: | |
Our 1926 house came with two sunrooms, one on the first floor and directly over it, off the master bedroom.
The first floor room used to have 12 casements windows all around which were so drafty we could hardly use the space in winter. We replaced all the windows sometime ago, using fixed glass and operating casements at each end with rolldown screens - great! Now the room is used yearround as a library/TV room. Lots of plants too. Lucky for us the room had built in bookcases flanking a fireplace in which we installed a gaslog system.
Upstairs the space(sleeping porch according to the original plans) which also had all the windows replaced to ward off the chill, opens directly to the master bedroom and serves as as an adult get-away TV/music/reading room.
It was rather common back in the '20s that these spaces were the "air conditioning" for the house.
About 5 years ago we converted an open veranda into a screened porch. Absolutely the best move ever! It's small, but we eat breakfast and lunch out there in spring, summer & fall as long as we can. When entertaining in good weather, the porch, which opens via french doors to the dining room, serves as extra space for our guests.
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amandacat
Citizen
Username: Amandacat
Post Number: 314
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 5:07 pm: | |
You guys are all making me very jealous of your wonderful-sounding (and, in Compsy's case, wonderful-looking) homes . . . |
heroman
Citizen
Username: Heroman
Post Number: 47
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 11:01 pm: | |
We call our room the sunroom and we use it as a dining room. The french doors are centered from the living room and there is no chimney protruding into the room. Our room is painted a deep russet/terra cotta w/white trim. Since we didn't want to see the cars in the driveway and the neighbor has high rose of sharon, I made simple ecru sheer cafe curtains. We have a buffet on one side of the doors and a small matching desk on the other side. There are two radiators. We turned the dining room into a den which gives us more usable space for everyday and entertaining. Because the room is the coldest, we didn't want to use it as a playroom and when we dine in there the temperature is very comfortable. When we entertain, it provides a great flow for a buffet setup. |
shh
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 751
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2003 - 9:04 am: | |
That's EXACTLY what I wanted to do but ours was too small. (Unless we used an 18 inch wide table.) |
shoshannah
Citizen
Username: Shoshannah
Post Number: 308
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2003 - 10:36 am: | |
Heroman, that sounds great. What are the dimensions of your sunroom/dining room?
These posts are fodder for a book: The Sunrooms of Maplewood. Lots of nice photographs with captions in the first person, sort of like The Times Magazine's "The Way We Live Now."
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roconn
Citizen
Username: Roconn
Post Number: 14
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - 11:31 am: | |
I have one of these rooms too .. as long as the living room is wide but only about 8' wide and there is a loss where the chimney is.
We call it a media room (ha) it has a floor to ceiling bookcase which holds media (cd's, dvd's, videos, books) and a small desk and the best thing
All the equipment excepting the TV for the home theatre system. Close enough to be handy, but the electronics not so in the middle of everything.
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ReallyTrying
Citizen
Username: Reallytrying
Post Number: 189
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 3, 2003 - 2:09 pm: | |
We did the same as Heroman, and our room is 8.5' x 13.5'. It's abit cozy when the table is extended to 90", but, what the heck, how often do you eat in the dining room? We use the would-be dining room as a family room. |
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