Nearly every homeowner has wished at some point for a bit more room to stretch out in, or a better way to bring the outdoors in. An addition is an obvious solution, if you've got land to expand and the budget to support a major building project. But what if you don't? An increasingly popular alternative is a sun or patio room.

That's the direction Jean and Richard Ray of Irwin, Westmoreland County, went when they were faced with the problem of how to accommodate their growing, extended family. With three small grandchildren and one more on the way, the couple were finding the split-level house they built in 1972 increasingly cramped during visits.

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"We didn't have any place for them to sleep," says Mrs. Ray.

Yet the Rays also wanted a room that would take advantage of an upper-level deck that runs the entire length of the house and looks out into woods beyond their back yard.

The solution: a 12- by 12-foot three-season sunroom off the dining room that took Patio Enclosures less than a week to construct on an existing gazebo foundation.

If the word "sunroom" makes you picture a glass-and-aluminum bubble tacked onto the back of a house in the '70s, you need new glasses. Thanks to advances in glass and framing plus ritzy features such as high-performance insulated gas, solar shades and custom wooden roofs, sunrooms are prettier -- and more comfortable and energy-efficient -- than ever.

Patio Enclosures' new eco-friendly Earth Smart sunroom, which will be trotted out at the 2008 Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show, has structural insulated panels and sliding doors and windows that not only allow for passive solar heating and cooling via cross breezes but also meet Energy Star standards. It also includes strategically placed glass roof panels that fill the room with natural daylight.

These outdoor rooms have become so mainstream that their construction is no longer considered a niche project; even Home Depot recently started selling and installing sunrooms.

"They're no longer square or rectangular boxes on the back of houses that don't look like they belong," says Michael Keck, branch manager of Patio Enclosure's Pittsburgh location.

"You get a more sleek, better-looking room," agrees Tim Delaney, division manager of Champion Window Manufacturing Co., another company that will be displaying custom patio rooms and porch enclosures at the home show. "They don't look like an afterthought."

That said, their value hasn't quite caught up with their growing popularity. According to Remodeling magazine's Cost Vs. Value Report 2007 (costvalue.remodelingmagazine.com/index.html) a sunroom addition -- defined as a 200-square-foot room with footings and a slab-on-grade foundation; post-and-beam framing; vinyl or aluminum clad awning; and casement windows with low-E, laminated or tempered glazing and screens -- recoups only about 56.8 percent of its price tag in the Mid-Atlantic region and 59.1 percent nationally. That's slightly more than a home office remodel (52.8 percent regionally) and slightly less than an basement remodel (60.8 percent) or family room addition (61.8 percent).

Understandably, the size, style and number of upgrades will determine the cost of a sun or patio room, along with the existing site condition. But prices can start as low as $10,000 or less for a three-season room that's built on an existing poured patio, deck or porch (a common scenario in hilly Pittsburgh). It all depends on how often you plan on using the room, the number of upgrades and what's best suited from an architectural standpoint for your home.

The Rays' AllView Elite sunroom, for instance, is crafted out of three sides of ⁵/₈-inch dual-sealed insulated glass that selectively filters in light while reflecting heat back to its source. As a result, it's cooler in the summer than a room with plain glass, and a bit warmer in the winter. Its traditional sloped roof is equally efficient. It is built from 3-inch thick, 3-foot wide insulated roof panels sandwiched in aluminum alloy skins and locked together with structural I-beams. Total cost of the project: about $14,000.

Glass outdoor rooms come in three product lines (sunroom/patio room, conservatory and solarium) and, depending on their construction, can be used either part of the year or year-round. Three-season rooms tend to be built with a finished aluminum exterior, while year-round rooms are usually maintenance-free vinyl construction with double-pane insulated glass.

Sunrooms are the least expensive, and are distinguished by tempered glass sides and a sloped or gabled solid roof, though they can also be punctuated with glass panels or skylights. The more expensive solariums and conservatories (so named because they were originally used during the 19th century as a place to "conserve" plants by protecting them from frost) have glass roofs and require a greater installation time because of all the framing. The difference between the two? Solariums are rectangular while conservatories are round or have more than four sides. The most popular size ranges from 12 by 12 to 12 by 16.

Patio Enclosure's most recent "wow" job in a county north of Pittsburgh is a classic example of the homeowners knowing exactly what they wanted. The twin 25-foot-long straight-eave solariums, which were built on an existing stone patio, match the existing roof line of the stone Tudor-inspired house to a tee. The smaller of the two rooms measures 13¹/₂ feet across and opens off the master bedroom above the garage, while its 16-footwide look-alike adjoins the living room. Both feature cathedral ceilings crafted from dozens of panels of premium glass that soar some 25 feet in the air.

The project, which took workers more than two months to complete, wasn't easy. Nor was it cheap. (It cost more than some houses.) But the result is a fabulous space in which the owners can feel like they're sitting outside in the sun, rain or snow but are still comfortably protected.

And that, says Mr. Keck, is the point of a sunroom.

But if you'd rather feel like you're sitting in your living or family room? An addition is probably a better choice.