Altering the frame across the public face of your home emphasizes new attractive attributes and changes the connection between your entryway and people visiting or passing from your home. Adding a covered front porch can also create new space for hospitality. Builders and home designers typically suggest that the style of your covered porch blend with your home’s overall architectural design. Within that parameter, your choices can make your home distinctively appealing.
Selecting a Porch Layout
Look at houses architecturally similar to yours, architectural strategy books and software that lets you change the appearance of outside spaces around a home. You can expect to discover a wide range of covered porch design ideas that harmonize well with your home’s architecture. Include square footage for fun or quiet relaxation if you want to use your covered porch as additional living space. Base your final choice about the balance of privacy and public welcome that best expresses your family’s living style.
Looking Both Ways
A covered porch changes the amount of light that enters and leaves your home. The cool shade of the porch roof can create your living room balmy in summertime but visually dull and chilly in dark winter weather. A roof may restrict the spread of glowing family-room light, leaving the yard outside gloomily dark. Adding a roof to your porch may be made better with the addition of lighting as well. Notice the consequences of a covered porch at several times daily and in many kinds of weather to create the best light choices.
Codes and Permits
In many communities, porch building is regulated by building codes, from the pitch of the roof to the strength of this base. In addition to safety and environmental concerns, local codes often protect the historic character of areas and include guidelines for assessing buildings in connection with one another. The particular design and code problems governing your neighborhood can affect the height, positioning, property setbacks, building materials and design of the porch in a sense that will differ for a comparable house in a different area. Contact the local building or code enforcement department to find out the compliance problems that will shape your design decisions.
Covered Porch and Home Value
Complying with codes governing a covered porch can make the project more elaborate and more expensive than you initially intended, but balance this against the National Association of Home Builders’ id of outdoor living spaces within an “essential design trend,” capping a 10-year trend of raising homeowner requests for front patio area in new homes. Requests for porches transcend that for garages in new building. Porches mean easier, casual interacting with neighbors, additional play-space for kids and, in certain climates, three- or even four-season space for relaxing and fun. Look hard at the way your family can benefit from a covered porch and perhaps reap additional benefits at resale time.