Is Having a Sunroom Really Worth it? | Real Estate FAQ's | Maiga Homes 

We practically live in our sunroom, year round. And if you find a company that will work with you and listen to what you want, you don't have to have glass walls and a glass roof unless that's how you want it to be. When our old back porch began to fall apart -- literally; my foot went through the floor in two different placed -- all I really hoped for was a new porch. But then my husband took over the planning, and decided a sunroom was a better investment. We did not have access to this same company, but there was a company semi-locally that built sunrooms of all shapes and styles. I was pretty specific about what I wanted: it had to be at least 20 x 12, it had to be covered with wood siding that could be painted to match the house, and it had to have a real shingled roof. I figured if it were going to be an actual room, it needed to look as if it belonged there. It had to have French doors, not sliders, and it had to be usable all year, even in our often brutally cold upper Midwestern winters. I had to overrule both my husband and the contractor several times, then start again with the carpenter who did the actual construction. None of them seemed to get the point -- they're guys, okay? -- but they went along with me. When the project was finished, they all stood around and congratulated themselves on how great it looked.🙄🙄 We insulated the floor, and the thick solid foam walls, themselves, act as insulation. We had wood siding and real shingles, and the steps up to the door evolved at my insistence into a stoop with railings and a shingled roof of its own, with a peaked front elevation, round white columns, and white railings on the steps and around the stoop. The back of our house now looks so good, I want the same style of covered stoop on the front. The one thing we didn't do that I wish we had done was upgrade to double-pane windows. We went with single pane, and have been trying to figure out ever since how to put storm panels over the windows. We've been using interior storms made from the thickest clear vinyl we could find locally. We used thick vinyl roll flooring with a thin insulating backing, and had an extra piece to lay on the traffic path across the room. I then put an 8x11 area rug in each end of the room. Heating and air conditioning was another issue, as we could not just tap into the existing system in the house. The company wanted to install a single 48" PTAC in one end of the room. I knew it would only lead to uneven heating and cooling, and would block furniture placement. I finally convinced them (and my husband) to install two 26" PTACs, one in each end, with one in the front corner and one in the back corner. They can be covered by curtains when not in use, take up much less wall space, and heat and cool far more evenly than a single larger unit. We also have a fireplace with an electric "fire" that keeps the room toasty most days. The casual observer doesn't know it's a sunroom; they think we just built on a family room. We don't use porch furniture in the sunroom. We have it furnished very much like any other room, with upholstered chairs and loveseat, wooden tables and side chairs, and a wide-screen TV.

I am retired and couldn't care less about my home's resale value, so off I go. I'm on 3 acres of gorgeous Minnesota countryside, so this will be great. A 16 x 16 3 season addition.

I was thinking of adding a sunroom to my existing home just to extend the house a bit but now based on your review I guess it’s not worth it if appraisal is only $4k

Some people (mentally) will pay for extra square footage so I don't see why it wouldn't be GOOD investment in some cases?