[dadspet]

We love our west facing screened in Lanai and use it almost every morning for breakfast and even many evenings. Probably it has a lot to do with our beautiful pond, golf course view. If we want to eat inside we still have a beautiful view to the outside thru the wall of sliding glass doors. We didn't need to add anymore enclosed AC space to our house and really didn't want to get involved in washing/cleaning a ton of outside windows after every rain storm. We like the fresh air and use sliding curtains to stop the sun if it happens to be in an annoying position in the evening; a rough guess might be 20% of the time. With 4 large sliding curtains we only have to slide one (some amount) to stop the sun if we happen to have that meal when the sun is low and and at a setting position it shines in on us dinning. My thinking is if you want more AC inside square feet buy a larger house because you will enjoy the fresh air and view a screen lanai provides. Another consideration is we eat breakfast at home almost every day (sun is never a consideration) and eat our evening meal out a fair amount of the time.