For years my mom kept wishing she’d use the sunroom as her knitting area or just a place to hang out with her friends.
The problem was it was always colder than the rest of the house because the furnace did not cover its heating. She had tried using a portable electric heater, but her worry about the electricity bill made it an unpleasant place to relax, especially since they’d retired. So my brothers and I, who were always handling the heating company bills incurred every time they sent a heating specialist to handle heating repair and heating maintenance, decided to get a permanent heating device for the sunroom. We had an idea to install a fireplace for her because it was big enough to accommodate it, and she could have friends over during winter too. Her birthday is just before Thanksgiving, which made our plan the perfect gift if we got the heating technician to handle the HVAC installation just before winter. Our plans went as we expected, and the week when the heating equipment was installed, my sister took Mom to stay over at her place. One week was enough for the HVAC professional and the construction team to install the heater. We also repainted the sunroom and had the heating dealership representative install a thermostat to make it safe for her to use without worrying about fire breakouts. Mom can’t stop raving about her sunroom, and it’s become her favorite place in the house. We’ve had repairs for the other part of the unit, but the new installation only needs frequent maintenance. I hope we can keep making little house updates for her as gifts because the heating project was a hit.