Sunroom Makeover: From Institutional to Rustic Retreat

Written By

Founder

Danny Lipford is a home improvement expert and television personality who started his remodeling business, Lipford Construction, at the age of 21 in Mobile, Alabama. He gained national recognition as the host of the nationally syndicated television show, Today's Homeowner with Danny Lipford, which started as a small cable show in Mobile. Danny's expertise in home improvement has also led him to be a contributor to popular magazines and websites and the go-to source for advice on everything related to the home. He has made over 200 national television appearances and served as the home improvement expert for CBS's The Early Show and The Weather Channel for over a decade. Danny is also the founder of 3 Echoes Content Studio, TodaysHomeowner.com, and Checking In With Chelsea, a décor and lifestyle blog.

Published On

May 4, 2023February 3, 2020

Sunroom bookshelves, painted and resurfaced — These shelves look much better, and with minimal expense!

Enhance the Sunroom Shelves

We’re going to make the shelves look more built-in by adding 1-by-2 strips on the fronts to make them look chunkier. We’ll eliminate the bottom shelves, replace the industrial-looking brackets with something more streamlined and designed, and use vertical boards to frame the TV.

Finally, we’ll paint the wall black, just like the shelves and shelf supports.

Repairing the floor with a trowel — The subfloor needs to be smooth before you install luxury vinyl tiles, so we’re applying floor patch compound.

Install New Luxury Vinyl Tile Flooring

Indoor / outdoor carpet used to be in this sunroom — before Margy became disgusted and ripped it up. Now, there’s just exposed concrete, which we’ll cover with luxury vinyl tiles.

Luxury vinyl tiles are thin, so any bumps on the subfloor will be noticeable. That means we need to grind down those divets. We picked up a grinder from the rental center that uses three diamond-tipped heads, spinning at high speed, to shave away the concrete.

We apply the floor patch compound with a smooth trowel. For the floor adhesive, we need a notched trowel. Then we’re ready to install the luxury vinyl tiles!

New ceiling with trim — We replaced those old, stained Styrofoam ceiling tiles with simple lattice strips and painted the existing ceiling.

Trim the Sunroom Ceiling with Lattice Strips

We’re covering up the old ceiling’s seams with lattice strips, giving the ceiling a fresh coat of white paint, and it’ll look much better than those old Styrofoam tiles.

We also:

Removed a corner ceiling fan
Installed trim around windows

Chelsea Lipford Wolf, Chuck and Margy Bartle and Danny Lipford — Today’s Homeowner hosts Danny Lipford and Chelsea Lipford Wolf, with homeowners Chuck and Margy Bartle.

Post-Production Thoughts

Chuck and Margy’s sunroom was a converted screened porch that was a mixture of unfinished projects and poor design decisions by the previous owners.

The bare floor and dated ceiling tiles did nothing to enhance the view, and the bookcase was functional but a little institutional.

Now, the room has a cohesive look that’s warm and inviting.

Extending the siding around the sunroom sets a rustic tone that is echoed by the lattice paneled ceiling.

The enhanced bookcase now looks more like a built-in entertainment center and the new window trim frames the view beautifully.

Plus, the floor finally makes the room feel like a finished part of the house.

And we did it all for only about $1,500 in materials.