Good Morning, Backyard Brian coming to you live from a softball field near you. It is that time of year again. Even though it’s a little cold this morning, travel softball season is getting started. We’ve got our first tournament of the year with my daughter, Kaitlyn, here this morning, down close to Richmond. Anyway, before I get too far along, I just want to give a shout-out to all my fellow Virginia fans who took such a heartbreak last night. The sun did come up this morning, and we’ll get to move on to another day. I will cheer on some of the other ACC teams as we go through the tournament here. Now I wanted to take a few minutes and talk with you about sun rooms and screen porches, because I believe that we live in one of the most beautiful places in the country.

I love Central Virginia. I love Waynesboro. I love the Blue Ridge mountains. I grew up here, and it’s just a beautiful place to be. One of the best rooms that you can have in the house to enjoy all that beauty is a sun room or screen porch. So I want to briefly talk about some of the options that we have. And I’m pretty excited.

I’m a little late this week to get my video out because we were out in Ohio this week to receive training for a new sun room system that we’re bringing on here at Bear Creek. I’m really excited. I’ve built a lot of custom sun rooms through the years, and we work hard to make sure the windows fit and everything’s trimmed out really nice, but it’s not an efficient system.  With the code requirements that we now have today – in terms of energy efficiency – it’s very hard to build a sun room and get the energy efficiency that meets code, looks clean, etc…

We have a new system that we’ve partnered with called Living Space Sun Rooms. They make a factory-built system that uses composite materials for the whole structure. This helps to maximize the glass, get a clean, finished look, and doesn’t take near the time or disruption in your house that traditional construction methods would take. It allows us to get in, get done, and get out of your hair. I know how inconvenient it is when we’re working in your home.

These sun rooms are amazing, and the other thing they’ve got for us is a product called The V Series. It is a system that allows you to have your screen porch that won’t let any rain in. When the seasons are changing and you want to control the temperature, you can easily close it up. And this feature comes at about the same cost of screening a porch.

It’s an amazing system. I’ll have to show it to you to explain better, but it does allow you to update an existing screen porch so you don’t ever have to worry about the rain coming in. You can shut off the wind when you need to or you can block the sun if it’s too bright. This system allows you to utilize your screen porch much more throughout the year. If you don’t want change it, if you don’t close it, you can still use it like a screen porch.

Anyway, it is a pretty exciting system. I would be glad to show it to anyone who would like to take a look at it.

So the question is, “What would you do with a sun room?” You know, my in-laws have a sun room that we built years ago. We custom built it, and when we gather as a family, it’s the number-one place we hang out. It’s where the Christmas tree goes and where we all gather when we first come to the house. It’s a great room that has a great view, and we really enjoy being there together.

It takes a little bit to envision. How could a sun room or screen porch be a gathering place for your family? What relationships could it spur? What could it mean for a place for you to read, write, or enjoy your coffee in the morning? Sun rooms and screened porches are great rooms in our climate, especially for the beautiful natural world that we have. If you’ve got any questions about that give me a shout, and I’d be glad to talk with you. Look at your home, figure out how that might be possible. We’ll work together to create something amazing that your family can enjoy.

I hope you have a great weekend. There’s still plenty of basketball on even though the Virginia Cavaliers aren’t in it, but we are going to enjoy the rest of our weekend and the softball tournament. I’m about to get my gloves and hat on and get back out there. They’re getting ready to play here in a little bit, so you guys have a great weekend with your family. Take care. We’ll talk to you later. Bye.