If you're dealing with this wretched polar vortex, the feeling of golden sun warming the skin fades to a distant memory like the sweet crunch of fairy bread, or the wave of relief as the school bell rings at the end of the day. Dingaling-aling, ding, ding.
I'm actually the type who puts on a pair of tracksuit pants underneath regular pants in winter, squeezing into so many extra layers I turn into a balloon-like blob from June through August.* I feel the cold, okay. And I miss the sun. And when I moved into a south-facing apartment last year? 'It'll be fine', I told myself. It isn't.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
These sun-loving extensions prove that even the coldest, darkest, dankest homes can embrace the sun and make winter a little more bearable.
So feel vicariously warmed by these sunny extensions and repeat after me, 'next year I'm having an endless summer and spending this god-forsaken season in Europe or Thailand or anywhere that's not here'...
Previously a narrow, semi-detached home damned to an eternity of darkness, the new living space at D House is connected to the garden by two floor-to-ceiling pivoting glass doors, swoon. When open, the fourth wall of the living area completely dissolves into the garden, making the home feel like a shaded garden pavilion. And look at those sweet sweet rays...
Petersham Courtyard House by Adriano Pupilli Architects focuses a modest budget on re-building the back-of-house to funnel winter sunlight deep into the kitchen and living room.
At Lake Wendouree House, the new living area opens onto the north-facing backyard with generously-sized windows. Already the family are enjoying this new living zone since moving in and are bound to enjoy sunny winter days when the home will be filled with natural light.
Inside a new pavilion for living at this bluestone cottage, a bay of north-facing, double-hung, sash windows lets light stream in over a built-in window-seat.
Source Architects have spun their magic on this 1920s home, designing an extension that refocusses living areas and a master retreat toward a new north-facing courtyard...
Feel better now?
Savour it. And whatever you do, don't go outside.
* Look, I don't want to brag, but I actually survived the Northern Hemisphere's polar vortex of 2014, (I'm still trying to chase up the medals). Here's a fun little article my hometown newspaper ran (because slow news day) proving the balloon-like blob anecdote.