Several folks have asked me what it took to add the screened in porch off the back of our house. I decided to just answer them all in one post here with photos!
Although this is not a DIY project by any means, I would like to show all of you out there who are pining for a cozy screened in back porch that it it TOTALLY possible to add one onto your existing home with minimal hassle. When we were looking for houses we had one major thing on our wishlist– a screened-in back porch. But when we purchased our home that was one of the things that we compromised on giving up. After living there for a year we decided to make it happen ourselves. So in that way, this project is DIY. You CAN have a porch on your home if your house has the space for the project. I was worried that the exterior of our house would look weird with a porch roof added to it, but after completion I see that my worry was for naught. The porch looks as if it was always meant to be there.
This porch has made life much more liveable in our house. The back of our house faces due West, and summertime in Alabama can be BRUTAL, to say the least. With the screened-in porch, we have a ceiling fan and canvas curtains to hide the sun. It’s like another room has been added to our home. We can open up the back door and let Garrett run around “outside” in the safety of the screen-in porch. The dogs have a shaded and breezy place to chill out with Garrett, too. It’s been SUCH a great addition to our home. If you have been wanting a porch, I highly recommend finding a good contractor who can add this onto your home and give you an extra room as well! We took out a home equity loan for this project, so it wasn’t too hard on the wallet, either.
Here is our house in 2004 before we added the screened in porch.
There was an existing uncovered deck off the living room.
In December of 2005 we hired a contractor to build the screened in porch over the existing deck, then add on an additional 10×13 area for an uncovered porch.
The roof line of the porch is like a very basic lean-to, but it gets the job done.
I was worried we wouldn’t get much ceiling height in the porch since there was an existing bedroom window to consider.
Our contractor positioned the roof of the porch just beneath the window and we still got an 8.5 foot high ceiling inside.
You can see the upstairs window better here. Also note that he took the existing roofing off the fireplace and transitioned it into the new roof.
And here it is in Fall of 2008 right before we put it on the market.
The porch was WELL worth the investment.
I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I might even make it and the uncovered area a little bit bigger.
And maybe I should have dropped in a hot tub.
Next house, right?
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