Redesigning the Screen Porch – Our Favorite Features

The world seems upside down at the moment. Like everyone, I am struggling to make sense of it all and finding myself with a lot of time on my hands. The ground is still mostly frozen and the temps are still a bit chilly for gardening. So, I decided to turn here to continue documenting some of our past projects. This is one of my recent favorites – the redesign and rebuild of our screen porch.

The Original Porch

When we built our house in 2000, we added a lovely 14′ x 16′ screen porch facing the river. We repurposed wainscoting out of the porch from the original farmhouse to cover the ceiling. The decking and posts were cedar. We used copper piping for the rails. I wish I had taken more pictures of the original porch. I could only find this one of it during the winter months.

This room was one of our favorite spaces in the summer months, providing an escape from the mosquitos in the evening and sometimes even during the day.

The Storm

In July 2018, we had a house full of family and guests and were preparing to leave for a cabin to celebrate the 4th of July holiday. As we finished packing up the cars, we noticed the wind picked up. It seemed like a storm was brewing and as we were driving we noticed the winds intensified. Upon our return a few days later, we learned that a towering oak tree that stood next to our house had crashed down on it during that wind storm.

The tree landed squarely on the screen porch, clipped off the soffits on the end of the house, and damaged the siding. Although it was quite a mess, we were fortunate that the tree did not intrude into the main structure of the house.

We had a professional tree company come and they started the long process of slowly cutting away the tree, trying not cause any additional damage to the house. Once the tree was gone, they placed tarps on the damaged part of the roof and siding and we went to work on the big job of cleaning up the debris.

Redesigning and Rebuilding: Structural Elements

As we contemplated the rebuild of the screen porch, we realized that we had the opportunity to fix some of the issues with the original design. The highest priority was to address water issues caused by the small gap between the screen porch roof and the wall of the house. We decided to bring the porch all the way to the wall and put a saddle in the roof to eliminate the drainage and overflow problems we always had in that area.

Another goal in the redesign was to create a lighter and more airy feel to the space. We maintained a vaulted ceiling and raised the roof as high as we could without interfering with the second floor window. We also added glass windows in the peak to allow in as much light as possible.

Another structural modification that we incorporated into our redesign was to add an outside access. Previously, we could only enter the screen porch from inside the house. By extending the porch an additional four feet, we were able to put in a door and a staircase going down to ground level.

Final Design Details

After all of the structural decisions, it was time to get to the design details. To keep the sight-lines as open as possible, we decided to use a cable railing system. This was not a DIY project for us! We hired some professionals to do the install.

Next, we chose Ipe, a Brazilian hardwood, for our new decking. Ipe is three times harder than cedar and can last up to 25 years. The color is a rich mahogany. The density of the wood makes it challenging to install. Although the boards were installed using a special clip system, the carpenters had to buy special blades to cut the boards to length.

After many months, things finally started coming together. Our roof was repaired and we replaced our damaged steel siding with a pre-painted LP SmartSide siding. We prefer the look of LP siding to the steel and hope that it is durable and long-lasting.

Our Favorite Feature – Amazing EZ-Screen Porch Windows

The final feature that we added to our screen porch that was a complete game-changer was Amazing EZ-Screen Porch Windows. These lightweight windows (they are made of a heavy vinyl, not glass) with screens are on a track system that makes it easy to open and close the panels.

These windows have significantly increased our use of the screen porch. In addition to extending the season of use, the windows also allow us to use the porch on rainy and windy days without feeling the effects of the weather. Possibly the best part of these windows is that by leaving them up when we are not using the porch, we have minimized the dusty grime and pollen that we dealt with on the old screen porch because it was always open to the elements.

We really can’t say enough about how much we LOVE these windows!

With one season of use behind us, we are counting down the days until we can start enjoying this space daily again. Maybe life will feel a bit more normal then too.

Stay home and stay well.