We just haven’t used our second-story sleeping porch much. Recently we got rid of the extra furniture that was, more or less, being stored in there. A fairly new TV, beanbag chair, stacks of books. Now there is all kinds of room. I still have a ceiling-high bookcase, a work desk for my artist-painting supplies, a rocking chair and an antique wicker chair and the papasan.

I made screens for 6 of the 8 windows in the room. There were only storm windows on the outside before. As you can tell by the picture, the glass windows are just taken out and leaning in front of their original spots. During the summer we keep them off. Rain doesn’t come in because of the low overhang of the roof. It’s perfect to go out there during a thunderstorm.

I’m out there all the time now. It’s so relaxing to hear the birds chirping and to feel the breeze. It is just like being outside. Before air condition people used to really sleep out there.

I think come fall I’m going to add a waist-high shelf across the front. I have acquired a few too many “patio” plants that can’t be left outside during our cold winters. I’ll move them all into the sleeping porch and use it like a sun room. It isn’t heated but it is insulated. I’ll put a small, portable electric, oil-filled heater in the space to help it stay at about 50 degrees. My plants would love that.

I’m also eye-balling the space for the summer as a place to put a potted milkweed plant and perhaps some flowering potted flowers and let that be a butterfly room for when my Monarchs come out of their pupas. How neat that would be!

This picture shows not quite half of the sleeping porch. The screens I made made such a difference in there.