BARN! and NEW PORCH!

[buckabucka]

I love that you will have a sewing nook on the porch, @baymule !

I also like seeing the painted wicker furniture @Beekissed . It really is like a blank canvas. We have no idea what kind of furniture we will put out there or how we will arrange things. I need to look at lots of porch photos!

Our porch "skylights" are just clear sections of that corrugated roofing, situated to line up with the living room windows. We have sun tunnels on the north side of our house, and they give off a ton of light. I would recommend them highly to anyone who is doing new construction.

DH put partial and full "solid walls" at each end of the porch using those corrugated clear panels too, to help keep snow off the stairways. What we haven't figured out, -how to deal with the lower screen. I see baymule has a low wall running the length of the porch. We might do that. It would keep out drifting snow somewhat. We are also thinking about just full floor to ceiling screen, no wall. We don't have pets or kids crashing around, and the porch is not high up off the ground. The problem is the drip area from the roof splashes dirt up on the porch (which will make the screens a mess). Maybe a lot of plants would stop that? I don't know...

 

[Nyboy]

Good thing about the bottom half a wall, is if you ever want to change screen porch to 3 season room much easier to add windows with wall.

 

[baymule]

@Smart Red our house faces east. The porch has only slightly darkened the living area. I painted with light colors and whitewashed the white pine floors in the house. I wanted to keep it light and with the porch, it all worked out. I hate dark and gloomy.

@buckabucka I would strongly suggest a pony wall. Ours is 32", I didn't want it so tall, but that would have made the screens too long to put up without a support bar in the middle. Plus the pony wall keeps the rain splatters off the porch. Plants won't work so well to keep the splatters off and could rub against the screens, damaging them.

 

[digitS']

I like houses that face east! Of course, a bedroom on the west side is kinda tough, at this latitude, anyway.

I like the idea of skylights in the porch! I wish the previous owner had thought of that.

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

Isn't the whole purpose of a covered porch shade?

 

[digitS']

It's not the whole purpose, NyBoy. I like to nap under my front porch roof but have trouble fitting unseen behind the clematis so the neighbors won't gossip about me ...

I've done a little work under my back deck roof during an infrequent, summer rain. Then, there are square dances, in some parts of the country.

I have two house windows looking out on that deck. The view is of the floor and the underside of the roof, with only a narrow band of green from the yard, between. Light into the house amounts to nothing ...

As @Smart Red suggests, there is a danger that some porches can be so nice that the living room migrates out there ... only to prompt the building of another open porch, which is improved, and the living room migrates again. This has been known to occur over several decades with the porch finally built out over the street! Who knows where it may end!

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

Steve if you want privacy for napping, have you thought of indoor outdoor roll up bamboo shades.

 

[digitS']

I don't want to be rude to my neighbors ...

Some of them may have little to do beyond keeping track of the the guy next door/across the (Tobacco) Road. You may know some folks like this yourself, NyBoy .

Any privacy concerns for our people perched on porches? My Texan grandmother dipped snoos. Of course this is related to porch sitting.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

It's not the whole purpose, NyBoy. I like to nap under my front porch roof but have trouble fitting unseen behind the clematis so the neighbors won't gossip about me ...

Oh that was good! Thanks for the laugh Steve, it brightened my morning.
I had an image of your sock feet hanging out the end.....gossip worthy! Haha!

 

[buckabucka]

Isn't the whole purpose of a covered porch shade?

Not here. Our main purpose: to keep bugs out! Late May, early June, the black flies show up in droves. They nibble your ears, and fly into your eyes, and often send us running from the garden during the early planting season. It will be nice to sit out in the pleasant weather and enjoy my lunch without ending up as lunch for the black flies. The mosquitos pick up as the black flies wane, especially in the evening.
There should be plenty of shady spots to move your chair, if you are taking a break from mowing the lawn on a hot day.
A porch is also a great spot for watching the thunder shower.

I don't think our porch will ever become a three-season room, but we may end up with the pony wall. We used to have a rail with balusters holding it up. It looked really pretty, but eventually the white balusters got black mold, which was hard to scrub off. I'd like it to be low maintenance.