5 Amazing Ideas to Furnish and Decorate a Conservatory

Filled with light, tranquility and relaxation, conservatories are so easy to fall in love with. You might like your living room or adore your bedroom, but this little private space connecting you with the nature around is going to become your happy place in no time. Don’t believe it? Here is a compiled list of five themed sun room decorating ideas you’ll immediately want to put into practice.

#1. Coastal/nautical theme. How many times have you gone on vacation in a beautiful sea based town and wished you never, ever left? How many times how you found yourself secretly envying the locals for being able to wake up every day with the sea moaning frantically in their ears? How many souvenirs have you bought thinking one day your house is going to look like that too? Now is your chance to transform all those dreams into reality and create the perfect coastal themed sun room. And here are a few tips on how to do it.

First of all are the floors and ceiling. Both should be wooden and painted white if possible, so as to remind you of a boat cabin or a café deck on the beach. Nothing works better or has a more inviting feel than sand and wood put together.

Another trick to make this sun room feel as sea breezy as possible is to hang floaty, white curtains from the windows, which will definitely give the room a beachy, fresh and salty almost air.

Details are very important as well when decorating a new conservatory. Try placing here and there, in strategic places, little tokens that will remind you of walking through a fishing town, au-bord-du-mer, on a fine, sunny day. For example, instead on regular lamps you can nail old fashioned gas lamps to the walls or even set some hurricane lights here and there. The main, central ceiling light can be decorated accordingly as well, for example with little anchors or Greek patterns. Fisherman’s ropes can be hung about or placed anywhere in sight, to give one the feeling you are really on the docks, looking far out on the sea to watch the boats home in.

The furniture should be carefully chosen as well and it should be made of wood or wicker. These are, normally, the choice materials you see in coastal towns. And, of course, everything is about color! Blue, deep sea blues and turquoise will become your best friends. Choose a variety of shades `and don’t be afraid to mix and match or even clash. Should your sun room be filled with sea colors, be bold and add a bit of coral, red or sundown orange. The blues can get a bit cold, so warm them up by adding some sun to your sea.

#2. Cabin in the Woods. Don’t think about the horror movie, because that’s not where we’re headed with this. We are rather headed in the direction of a beautiful, cozy hunting lodge, set somewhere in the middle of the forest, with a roaring fire and mulled wine waiting on the table. If we got your attention, here’s how you do it.

Your key elements here are wood, leather, stone and a brown pallet. Let’s break them down.

Stone floors are, probably, the best option, while wood paneled walls and a wooden ceiling complete the atmosphere. Try to build your sun room as high as possible if you have chosen the “cabin in the woods” style, as all the stone and wood might make it feel a bit clustered and claustrophobic if too small. A high ceiling and wall to wall windows will give it a nice airy feel, but keeping it cozy at the same time.

Hard wooden furniture is recommended as well, with lots of armchairs, sofas and ottomans to rest your feet on like after a good day’s hunting. As far as accessories and details go, you can really go wild here, pun intended. Deer antlers, faux fur rugs spread across everywhere, warm blankets thrown on the couches and chairs, hardy candles, gaslights, pine cones, wreaths of oak leaves, green or dry, forest flowers on the stands in beautiful leather decorated vases would all make a perfect choice.

Don’t forget to add a touch of color to all this stone, wood, brown and earthy paradise you’ve created. Some reds, oranges and even night sky blues will go wonderfully and also soften up the manly decorum.

#3. And speaking about a manly decorum, how would you feel about turning your sun room into your own private gender biased space? Making it a man cave or a lady’s parlor? If this appeals to you, here are a few tricks into doing that and getting the private space you’ve always dreamed about.

Regarding the man cave, there are no rules, really, as this is going to be a very subjective design. However, the base lines will probably be dark colored wood, stone floors and demure patterns. Feel free to add a big beer fridge, a pool table in a corner, a football table, darts, bowling pins and game consoles, if you so desire. The idea of the man cave is for you to have the room you always wanted as a kid, but never got, so let your inner child come out and play. If you want a huge Darth Vader poster on the wall, go ahead and put it there or, maybe, if Superman was your childhood hero, now would be a good time to honor him.

As far as the ladies are concerned, their own private rooms are called “woman caves” or “she sheds” and this is exactly what you can do with your sun room. Just like with the man cave, there is no right and wrong here, because it all has to be done according to your personality and preferences.

But again, as far as the base lines go, we can suggest a few patterns. A flowery touch is always a sweet and feminine way to go. You could also hang a big, beautiful, shiny chandelier from the ceiling, to really give it a womanly, jazzy feel. You could fill your sun room with flowers, add a little desk to work from, small tables for tea and cake, bring in the tv to watch your favorite documentaries, rose wood shelves for your books and magazines. Or, why not, probably the best loved idea of all, turn your lady sun room into your walk-in closet. Move all your clothes and shoes in there, install a huge mirror, add sofas and poufs everywhere, a big make up table in a corner and invite all your girlfriends to drink Cosmos once a week. Take that, man cave!

    #4. Next stop is the cozy and boho type of sun room you could create for your comfort. This one is probably the easiest to pull off. But be careful, this might get so cozy, you’ll simply want to move into the sun room altogether. You have been warned!

The boho style might seem just a big old pile of thrown around pillows, scarves and beads to some people, but we assure you there’s both science and art behind this look. Luckily, we have it mastered down, so we can show you how to do it.

Word of order: color! Many, many colors, patterns and different fabrics need to be spread around this room in order to make it work.

Don’t be afraid to let your imagination run wild with this one. Install some huge, cozy couches and spread tens of pillows on them. Then hang some beautiful curtains. They can either be white, to balance out the colorful room or you can be bold and add some sun curtains. Details are important as well here. For the boho chic style, you need to have a few key ingredients: a dream catcher on your walls, also a suncatcher for one of the windows, lots of flowers, geometrical patterns, fluffy carpets and all sorts of nick-knacks and what-nots like pretty wooden cats and big painting of a crescent moon.

These are just examples, of course, of what you can do, but, mostly they are the elements that embody the bohemian style best. Be careful not to overdo it though. You don’t want to turn your boho sun room into a tea shop run by Ms. Havisham.

#5. And last but not least, the Moroccan style sun room. It is a very obvious style choice as the Moroccan decorum is all about basking in the sun, worshipping and honoring it every chance you get. The best argument for this are their beautiful traditional patterns, which often include stylized sun discs and bold, bright colors, mostly reds, oranges and yellows, reminding the viewer of our lord and patron, the sun.

And here is your first clue to how you’re going to decorate your sun room Moroccan style. The furniture, walls and floors are a bit less important here, because the true Moroccan feel will come from the accessories and details. So we suggest going plain on your walls, ceiling and floors and going bold on the details. One exception, though. We do have a suggestion about the floors should you be bold enough to do it and that’s installing a mosaic instead of a floor. Nothing says ‘oriental’ better than bright, courageous mosaic, but, like we mentioned, it’s not for everybody, that’s why we won’t insist upon it.

Circling back to the details, obvious choices are pillows, rugs, curtains and the famous Moroccan lights.

Pillows in all shapes and sizes are welcomed in this dome of sunny delight: round puffy ones, squared and chunky ones, tassels and fringes, all you can think of, really. We suggest you don’t skip the curtains step, because it’s quite important for the oriental, long-hot-summer-nights feel you’re trying to give your sun room. Buy some really huge, long and flowy ones. We suggest some turquoise ones with a big bold Hamsa symbol on them, for example. They will look amazingly exotic and ward off evil at the same time. Curtains sporting mandalas and stylized sun dials work just as well.  

So there you have it. Five different designs for your new and improved sun room. So whether you’re basking in the warmth of the sun in the summer or cozying up by the fire in the winter, these conservatories will become the main focus of your home.

Author bio: Martin Laird is an eco-friendly interior design expert, with a flair for fashion. His two cats, Luna and Diego absolutely adore him and try to spill coffee on his blueprints whenever they can. He likes to explore the city as much as possible and discover new trends.