Back Porch

As I was perusing through the blog, I realized there wasn't a before-and-after of the back porch.

During the home inspection process, the ideas began swirling in my head about what to do with the back entrance to the house.  The existing function wasn't workable with an immediate step-down from the rear entrance and 2x4's, which were surprisingly solidly mounted, as hand railings.

So, in usual fashion, I began doing a lot of online research for elements that would blend with the original style of the house.  The goal was to have something that looked like it would have been an original feature.  Interestingly, houses built during this period with doors above grade didn't have covered back porches. During our many walks through the neighborhood, we journeyed through many alleys looking for an example to gather inspiration. It didn't matter if the house was valued at three hundred thousand or two million dollars, what I was looking for didn't seem to exist. The only thing I could find  were small shed or hip roofs over the rear entrance and, even, those were rare.  Decks were common, but nothing covered.  Even our house had, at least two iterations of a deck, the most recent, of which, was an enormous structure that I was able to confirm after looking at an archived satellite view and street view on Google maps.

Inspiration

The main goal was to have something which covered the rear entrance, since we would be having the sliding glass door replaced with a solid wood door. Also, the flooring directly inside the house would have the tile removed and replaced with solid wood flooring--there needed to be something at the rear entrance to protect everything from the elements, namely moisture.  Eventually, I found a design online that I thought would blend nicely: not too big and met the functional goal without being an obtrusive addition to the house.  I made some modifications that would allow it to blend in with the house.  After getting the final approval from my Wife, the next step was to get our, eventually, hired contractor to make the vision a reality...


Below is a before and after.  We are very pleased with the end product, although there were definitely some major bumps which occurred during the construction, but I won't go into the details of it here--even the most experienced contractor can screw up the most simple, foundational elements (i.e. pier locations, ensuring the perimeter deck joists were square).  The back porch is just 4ft x 6ft, but exactly the size we wanted.  It was never meant to have a party on, but, instead, to provide a simple function--weather protection.

Before & After