Florida Rooms and lanais
 

Here's another preference question, similar to No/So/old/new. We plan to snowbird for 3 to 5 yrs before giving up our northern home. How important is it to have a Florida room and lanai if we are in TV for Jan - Mar? I am a fiend for light and fresh air, but then there are so many ways to be out and about in The Villages, I wonder how much additional rooms like this are used? And also, how problematic it is to have neighbors only a few feet away? Would love your opinions and advice. Thanks.

Re: Florida Rooms and lanais
 

What's the difference between a Florida Room and a Lanai? Assume that a Florida Room is a porch or attached room with windows and a Lanai is a porch or attached room with screens. (In Bradenton in the early 60's my grandparents called their screened attached room a Florida Room and lanais were in Hawaii.)


Anyway -

Florida Room: My mother has a manufactured home in Orange Blossom Hills with a "Florida Room" that has jalousie windows (crank open type). In the winter the room isn't used except for one Friday night a month when her card club meets at her house and if she has visitors with small kids and the kids are put in the Florida Room to play. It is hardy ever used in the summer as it isn't air conditioned and is too hot. The Florida Room adds width to her living room and makes the house look and feel larger. It is a somewhat useful and adds value to the house.

Lanai: We have a back porch type Lanai under the same roof as the rest of the house. In the winter, on nice days, we will open the full width slider and the lanai becomes part of the "great room". We use it a lot when we are in Fla (two weeks each in early Spring and Fall until late next year when we will be rainbirds [no snow in Calif bay area]

I like the screened Lanai over the glass enclosed Florida Room but we don't plan on staying in TV during the summers.

We don't have problems with close neighbors because we back onto a golf course. It is fun watching and sometimes chatting with the passing golfers.