Making It Home: Allan Armadale's Sun Room
Tables and Storage
Armadale's bookshelves were probably very simple--just carved brackets supporting boards. Look at your lumber store for ready-to-stain brackets and shelving.
For a free-standing alternative, try a baker's rack. Lumber stores often have wrought-iron-style shelving at surprisingly low prices. If the piece seems too stark, you can spray paint it or swab on a second color for a faux finish look.
Lumber and garden stores are also an excellent source of little iron tables, large ceramic urns, decorative items. For a softer side table (or one you can hide storage beneath), try a $10 round knock-down table from a discount store, topped with a plain-colored cloth and an off-white lace square.
Windows, Accessories, and Lighting
Windows should be large and relatively undraped. Lace curtains are effective in softening the light and providing some privacy, but avoid heavy draped effects, even as valances. Shutters and roll-up shades are also authentic options, for a simpler, more masculine look.
Sun rooms would rarely have been piped for gas, so skip the reproduction gas lights in favor of a reproduction pull-down kerosene fixture, wired for electricity. Modern table lamps in the shape of hurricane lamps or "Gone with the Wind" lamps are also a good choice.
A key element in Armadale's sun room was wall brackets holding small reproductions of famous statues. If your budget doesn't stretch to genuine Victorian brackets, try the unfinished ones at lumber stores or the more classical styles available at shops that sell unfinished ceramic "blanks." A light color, and a bit of faux aging, will give you a respectable bracket to hold your art works. And if you don't have any marble busts or hand-painted ceramic vases, a trip to the ceramic shop or the craft store will provide those, too.
Baskets, ceramic vases, large ferns on iron stands, and "improving" pictures are also fitting accessories for your Victorian sun room. Garden ornaments are generally a good fit, as is the proper equipment for sketching or painting, modeling in clay, or pursuing "naturalistic" studies by collecting bugs, rocks, or leaves.
A long sun room, properly insulated for winter use, can be an excellent "family room" or "hobby room" for messier or semi-outdoor pursuits. Since the sun room usually gives access to a yard, it's a great place for a clean, neat potting bench with cabinets or drawers to hide gardening equipment. Just keep your nicer rugs away from the "hobby" areas, and you'll have a multi-purpose room
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