Milwaukee/NARI Members Offer Tips for Three-Season Rooms
There’s plenty of pleasant porch weather to enjoy before autumn’s red and yellow foliage morphs into winter white. A home’s three-season area, whether a screened porch or a sunroom, is a transitional area to the outdoors. These rooms need specific maintenance and updating after facing a season of weather and use. With a little planning for next year, the space will be ready and renewed as a front-row seat for watching the parade of seasons passing by.
Members of the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (Milwaukee/NARI), the area’s leading home improvement and remodeling industry resource for more than 48 years, offer tips on maintaining and updating a home’s three-season area.
Sunrooms
In addition to being a sunny and quiet sanctuary, sunrooms can get a workout as a spa enclosure or exercise room. Some become a festive rec room with a cocktail bar featuring appliances such as blenders. The versatile space often holds the buffet table during a party, with guests seated on an adjacent patio.
Following are tips on updating and maintaining this three-season area:
• Interior updates: Melissa Paulson, interior designer at Brillo Home Improvements, Inc. in Milwaukee, says the goal of updating a sunroom’s interior is to bring the outdoors inside. She has done this by replacing old windows with energy-efficient ones that feature blinds within the panes of glass. The blinds can be lowered from the top, exposing the top half of the window only, leaving the bottom half private. Another technique is to replace dark paneling with drywall painted a light color.
• Tough floors: Porches get high traffic volume and need appropriately tough flooring that can be cleaned easily. Paulson mentioned poured concrete that is acid-washed to add color. She also likes porcelain tile for its durability, and stone tiles as a way to bring nature inside.
• Structural inspection: Each year, the exterior components should be checked, including windows, caulk, gutters, siding, door, and roof.
• Glass patrol: Sunroom owners need to clean the windows regularly to maximize the room’s purpose as a collector of light.
Screened Porches
Screened porches provide a cool, pest-free way to enjoy the outdoors. Many are used for quiet reading, social mingling, casual family lunches or dinners, and even sleeping.
Here are some tips on porch maintenance and updates:
• Look up: Check for tree branches or limbs that are hanging over the roof or power lines. Trim where needed.
• Clean the screens: Remove dust and pollen from porch screens by vacuuming, then lightly scrubbing the screens with a scrub brush dipped in warm water with a squirt of dish soap in it. Rinse with a garden hose or spray bottle, from the inside of the porch pointing out.
• Watch exterior wear: Climate often determines maintenance. Since a porch is exposed to the elements, pay attention to paint, wood aging, and screen upkeep.
• Clever storage: A screened porch can double as a storage area without giving up space. Deck boxes can keep items out of sight, and at the same time provide seating when cushions are placed on top.
The Milwaukee/NARI Home Improvement Council was chartered in July 1961, as a Chapter of the National Home Improvement Council. In May of 1982, the National Home Improvement Council merged with the National Remodelers Association to form NARI – the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. With over 900 members, the Milwaukee Chapter is the largest in the nation.
The Council’s goals of encouraging ethical conduct, sound business practices, and professionalism in the remodeling industry have led to the growth of the remodeling industry nationwide and made NARI a recognized authority in that industry.
For more information or to receive a free copy of an annual membership roster listing all members alphabetically and by category, and the booklet, “Milwaukee/NARI’s Remodeling Guide,” call (414) 771-4071.
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