Wood is a much more forgiving surface should they, or anyone else, happen to fall. Could be the difference between sprains and breaks. I also think it will have a nice seamless look with your living room.

Beautiful home.

@Kendrah Thank you for your thoughts and the compliment. I’m trying to love it. Last owners were there over 50 years - hence no recessed lighting ANYWHERE in the house and the window treatments!

Wood will be great provided you can supply some climate control in the room. Without heat or AC you're likely to have issues with wood cupping.

If you can't match the wood, then select a contrasting material would be the solution.

Thank you @BeverlyFLADeziner. We do plan on climatizing this room.

The pretty brick wall, the tongue and groove ceiling, casement windows.........NOTHING about these suggests a matching wood floor. It appears there will also be an issue with the living room window.

We can't see the patio surface, but it would be nice to make a connection or a match.

It's a transitional space between indoors and out, treat is as one ! "Seamless/extension", seems not a goal here.

There are instances where this makes perfect sense, but the feeling of sun room is often unintentionally lost as well. As in why didn't we just extend the room , and remove the ( living ) room wall and let the light in?

It was clearly and add on, I'd leave well enough alone. You might even look into a painted oversized black/white or green/white checkerboard floor. : ) on a 45* to widen the look. Even repeating the brick could be charming

Your utmost concern should be sun fading in a sunroom. I’d choose stone or tile, not wood or carpet.

Is this a heated space where you want it to look like part of the home? IMO then that continuation of flooring makes sense. You will need to give us more info if you want help. Is the space heated and cooled like the main house for instance.

My preference would be tile, but I do like how this designer did the flooring here. Your room is too narrow for this particular design, but maybe another would work.

It’s very pretty, and sets it apart from the main rooms a bit.

Please understand, I loved my parents dearly; they've been gone quite a while and I miss them dearly. But I do think that try as we may, we can not protect them from every step up or step down in the world.

" My elderly parents when they visit".....: )

It is one thing to permanently plan for parents to reside in your home until their departure. Perhaps you will rid your home of rugs of any type, as those are indeed a hazard unless edge to edge. Perhaps you would have railings, handicapped access and make other, even more major accommodations.. But for most?

"Please enjoy this space, when one of us can help you out there!" We don't want a trip/ fall" .

At some point hardly anyone would ever see the folks that brought you into this world. : ) unless a visit to the senior living facility, lol

Hi. Two more photos attached. The backyard patio is brick - hate it. Would probably like it more but there’s so many weeds between the bricks - the very elderly prior owners of the home didn’t maintain the home or hired folks that didn’t do a great job fixing things up. We were thinking flagstone or bluestone. I’ve shown the prior owners furniture in the room. It faces north (big windows) and east. But the north side must be a more northwest as we do get some afternoon sun in there. It’s by no means sunny though. We definitely want it to be seen as a continuation of the home, a more informal extension of the living room and be climatized to be used all year long.

Yeah - I’ve been (maybe rightfully) criticized for how much (too much?) focus I put on the comfort of my elderly parents (they’re with me about 6 weeks at a time, three- four times a year - with the idea that being me with me permanently is part of the plan) when it comes to renovating this house. But it’s important to me - and that’s another post or a topic for a therapist. 🤣🤣

I think it is wonderful that you are trying to accommodate your parents. My dad enclosed and heated our back porch when I was a kid and turned it into the TV room. There were windows on three sides and a brick wall. They laid wood floors. The room very much felt like part of our home, not a transitional indoor/outdoor space.

I moved into a 170 year old home that had a step down into the kitchen. I imagined many people falling while helpfully clearing their dinner plates, but was especially concerned about my mom breaking a hip. I raised the kitchen floor. People on Houzz thought I was nuts. People in my life thought I was an incredibly thoughtful daughter, most especially my parents. They gave me their all when they raised me. I want to give them my all as they age.

While taking care of my fit, young, and tall FIL with frontal temporal dementia, I came to realize that I cannot prevent falls or other kinds of harms. But, I can reduce the risk. There is a big difference between the two.

Talking about aging on here really touches a nerve. It is fine to go all out because you've envisioned an outdoor kitchen or a wine cellar or a pool for grandchildren. But for some reason when you go all out because of aging - your own or your parents, people go nuts.

We should all be so lucky to have children or grandchildren that care about our well being and make efforts to care for us with safety and comfort. It warms my heart to hear your story and I have no doubt your parents feel loved by you. Life is short hug them tight!

Back to the questions...My humble opinion.. If you are raising the floor to be the same level as the rest of the interior go for the same material. I have a sun room off our great room with the same floor no transition. And we love this. It used to be a travertine tile and we did not like that so removed it. All our floors are the same level and wood. My sun room is a 4 season room so no issues with humidity. This could work for you but... if your space is one that gets cold or very hot you may need to think about a surface that works with that environment. Although... looking at your photo it looks like a 4 season too.

You have a beautiful patio out back, it is lovely with the style of home. I know Brick can be such a pia. We had a similar walkway and patio and my husband took all the bricks out, cleaned, sorted and then put them back down in an even more beautiful design. It was a like a lego puzzle .

Here some lovely sun rooms that might inspire ideas for your own family oasis.

not wood floors but so pretty with the brick

Stonebridge Residence · More Info

Sun Room Addition · More Info

4 season porch · More Info

Front Porch on Lake of the Isles · More Info

131 Green Oaks · More Info

Boxerpal, wow, those sunrooms are all so beautiful.

Cee Bee, just saw your exterior photos — your house is gorgeous!

Just sharing this from a family member’s home. I like the tile. Wood floors are throughout the house.

A good, thorough power washing will remove the weeds from your brick patio as well as any moss that is growing there. We do ours once a year and it remains beautiful all spring, summer, and fall. Your home is GORGEOUS!

@ptreckel Thank you. Hmmm. Hubs is more the expert but it seems like the way the brick was laid was all wrong. They are some spots where the brick is all loose (and a haven for chipmunks) underneath and a stepping hazard. Thought it may need a total redo but maybe not? I’ll talk to my husband about that.

Thank you everyone for the tips and compliments. Love the photos @Boxerpal and @chloebud. Very very inspiring. Your photo @chloebud looks so much like my room!

@Kendrah and @Boxerpal - thank you. Very thoughtful of you to say and makes me feel less “weird”. 🤪

And I do appreciate the comments offering another point of view. I look at my 1940 kitchen and could see it be stunning - dreams of soapstone and a coffee station and more prep and storage - except that my parents (in 80s with memory issues) absolutely love sitting in the kitchen - not my adjacent dining room - despite my attempts to warm it up. Arguably, this isn’t a safety issue - it’s a comfort issue for them.

As for the sunroom - keep the brick as is? Don’t paint it? The lower walls under the windows are white. Could do either way on that one!

So this is really just a porch that has windows . You will need to have this checked to see if heating and cooling is even going to be possible without making this a proper addition. Please have it checked before spending money ona space not meant for living space .

@Cee Bee

As for the sunroom - keep the brick as is? Don’t paint it? The lower walls under the windows are white. Could do either way on that one!

Keep the brick it's lovely. Brick and white are lovely. You might want to do slate floors like suggested above because that can handle cool and warm more easily.

New Traditional Remodel · More Info