Gardiner House
A smattering of porch details. A few key points:
*The house wall is important. Character is lost when the house wall isn't interesting on it's own. this can be done simply with good window casings. Better is to add wide edge casings at the ceiling.
*Boo Hiss Lattice: Please, please please find an alternative to lattice for the crawl space. Raised beds, horizontal louvers, anything but cheap diagonal, harlequin diamond lattice. Besides adding a completely discordant textures and angles to the picture, they're often painted eye-catching white. Shudder.
*Depth--distance from house wall to column line--can vary, but. The operating factors are utility. Narrow porches can't support traffic and quiet reading and talking. Wide porches on the other hand can tolerate rugrats and drive-by bromance scrums while not disturbing mom's morning tea and kibbutz.
*Ceilings. Yes. Porches are essentially spatial transitions from Big Sky to your Impressive Interior. Ceilings offer a chance to create vertical compression which emphasizes both spaces on either side. Also detail them well. Generous edges all around and character to the surface. Bead board is widely used with fairly good reason: it has character. But there's plenty of other ways to get that. If you're concerned about light--don't be, porches are the lightest spaces you'll ever build--a light color, white or sky blue, really bounces soft light everywhere. Another problem with porches without ceilings--besides being cavernous--is they feel darker.
*Stairs: Gentle Please If you have the real estate, low riser (5"-7") and deep treads (12-16") make for sweet climbing and descending experiences. They look cooler too--relaxing, welcoming. Personal preference: I don't like to see stringers--the angled joists that support wooden treads. I much prefer walls on either side of my stairs. Easier to clean and maintain. There are a few exceptions, but they're high modern. Walls should be wide if you can do it--12" min.
*Columns. It's tough to get too big here. But it's awful to go too narrow. If you want to save money, don't build a porch. if you want views, then go with big spans between columns. Just don't put toothpicks up.
*THE BIG SECRET to a great porch design is overhangs--deep ones. Soffits or open rafter tails both work.
*Style Integration: A porch will set your home's style. If you do nothing else to a plain builders home, the porch will designate it as prairie, craftsman, classical or mountain lodge. That said, if there's too much discord between the porch and the rest of the house, it will look odd. Tip: design the porch to your preferred home style and redo the details on the rest of the house. If you're on a budget, there are specific details you can change that will get you started and buy you time.
*The house wall is important. Character is lost when the house wall isn't interesting on it's own. this can be done simply with good window casings. Better is to add wide edge casings at the ceiling.
*Boo Hiss Lattice: Please, please please find an alternative to lattice for the crawl space. Raised beds, horizontal louvers, anything but cheap diagonal, harlequin diamond lattice. Besides adding a completely discordant textures and angles to the picture, they're often painted eye-catching white. Shudder.
*Depth--distance from house wall to column line--can vary, but. The operating factors are utility. Narrow porches can't support traffic and quiet reading and talking. Wide porches on the other hand can tolerate rugrats and drive-by bromance scrums while not disturbing mom's morning tea and kibbutz.
*Ceilings. Yes. Porches are essentially spatial transitions from Big Sky to your Impressive Interior. Ceilings offer a chance to create vertical compression which emphasizes both spaces on either side. Also detail them well. Generous edges all around and character to the surface. Bead board is widely used with fairly good reason: it has character. But there's plenty of other ways to get that. If you're concerned about light--don't be, porches are the lightest spaces you'll ever build--a light color, white or sky blue, really bounces soft light everywhere. Another problem with porches without ceilings--besides being cavernous--is they feel darker.
*Stairs: Gentle Please If you have the real estate, low riser (5"-7") and deep treads (12-16") make for sweet climbing and descending experiences. They look cooler too--relaxing, welcoming. Personal preference: I don't like to see stringers--the angled joists that support wooden treads. I much prefer walls on either side of my stairs. Easier to clean and maintain. There are a few exceptions, but they're high modern. Walls should be wide if you can do it--12" min.
*Columns. It's tough to get too big here. But it's awful to go too narrow. If you want to save money, don't build a porch. if you want views, then go with big spans between columns. Just don't put toothpicks up.
*THE BIG SECRET to a great porch design is overhangs--deep ones. Soffits or open rafter tails both work.
*Style Integration: A porch will set your home's style. If you do nothing else to a plain builders home, the porch will designate it as prairie, craftsman, classical or mountain lodge. That said, if there's too much discord between the porch and the rest of the house, it will look odd. Tip: design the porch to your preferred home style and redo the details on the rest of the house. If you're on a budget, there are specific details you can change that will get you started and buy you time.
The piers are the attraction here. I'd also point out, I've tried these curves in the past. You really need to study these in 3-d to prevent them from feeling trite. This is also an example of an open ceiling. I don't think they work well on porches. Porches are essentially transitional and should compress space, not open it.
The next are a series on a porch that almost works. The details are tantalizingly close. It works ultimately. I would live there. But it would make me itch on my restless days.
Q