I have a screened porch and I love it. Mine is 20 feet long and 12 feet deep. It's at ground level and on concrete. I wouldn't trade it away for anything. Now you know I love mine, here are some negatives to consider:

You mentioned being able to BBQ. I wouldn't suggest that. I also had one on my last house (approx 12'x15'). A screened deck/porch has a roof, and it's attached to the house. Yes, it's all screened but that would be weird to me. Almost like grilling inside the house.

The only negative I experience is being able to keep things clean (ie dust/dirt). Mine has a concrete floor and cleaning is a serious event every couple weeks. There's no way I would consider an outdoor rug. It would be ruined in a year.

My last house screened deck was raised to the 2nd level. Floor was wood decking and it had outdoor carpet. Floor was not as difficult to keep clean, but did a serious number on the vacuum cleaner.

Any kind of nice outdoor furniture gets filthy fast, but I'm sure that's the case with any outdoor furniture. The downside is the furniture doesn't get rained on, so requires a lot more cleaning than those left outside to get rained/rinsed once in a while.

Hope that helps.
Gayle

Lass, have you considered having a screened porch/deck (not sure what the difference is) with part open for your hubby and the portion around the door screened in for dining and relaxing?
It's amazing how creative I can be when spending other peoples money

We have had both. I like the cover but agree the BBQ smoke gets trapped a bit under the roof. Last house we moved the BBQ outside of the porch. I did not even set it up this year. With the curtains I am making for our porch I am going to have to think seriously about moving the stove away from where they, curtains, might blow into the flames. Or make a tie back. This time I plan to screen in the whole porch with the curtains. The whole plan on arrangement for the porch is evolving for me right now.

I was looking at this picture last night remembering our last porch. I use that table in my studio right now but there is no shortage of tables around here. LOL I can come up with another one to use.

Our porch is only 8 by 26 or 27 foot. Wish it were even 10 foot wide. Would have been much better and 12 foot wide a dream. But it is what it is. No changing it now.

Chris

Here is a link that might be useful: Porch at last house.

I'm glad you asked this. I've wondered about it too. Here in mosquito country we don't get to enjoy our deck in the evenings when it finally cools down. Well, it never really cools down, but the sun quits cooking us.

My concern is that bugs will come through the bottom. The deck is already built so can't add screen under it.

I'd love to have a screened porch. We have a nice covered porch, with an open area on one side, similar to a deck. Having it screened would really make it more enjoyable in the evenings.

It's hard to keep clean--right now it's covered with maple 'whirlygigs', and when the neighbor ploughs the field to the west, we get a nice layer of dust. Screens would eliminate the debris, but not the dust. :(

shades, I looked at your pics. I have an old porcelain-top table and a chair (both unpainted) just like your green and white ones! My chair has a hole drilled in the center of the seat, and I've always wondered why it was there. Does yours have a hole?

Shades, bless your heart, your plan is coming together for the curtains!!! Fantastic! Grass does NOT grow under your feet. :)

Well, I screened in my carport at MoccasinLanding. Very quickly, the squirrels and the RACCOONS, had the mosquito screening ripped all to pieces. I had to put up 1/2" galvanized hardware cloth on the outside, and another layer of mosquito/insect screening inside that.

Lavender, you mentioned the wild critters come around your house, so do consider the destructive nature of some who are looking for food.

We now have a 10x12 wood deck on the east (back) side of our house. It is shady in the afternoons. We have a BBQ grill which started up on the deck, and ended on a bricked patio/pad just down the steps from the deck. Even a couple of degrees more heat in the summer is way way too much.
We will not be doing more construction on this deck.

However, I bought a canvas gazebo on a metal frame. It is 10x10' and it has netting all around the four sides, and it can be zipped shut to keep out the bugs. I really like it. I got it half price at the end of the season from JCPenney.
I put a tiny bistro table and two chairs in the middle. It has a screened-but-vented top-knot. Could something like that be useful to you? Do the deck open, and when skeeters are an issue, go to the gazebo?

Mama goose - Re the hole in the chair, I have no idea why there would be one in a wooden chair, but here in the NE, I've noticed that all of the molded plastic outdoor chairs have a hole in the seat and finally figured out that it's to let the rain drain thru, which was not the case in So. Cal., where the chairs don't have a hole 'cause it never rains in Southern California - well hardly ever, except last winter........

Mama_goose, My Mom gave me that table. I really like it and use it inside now in my studio. Also had it in my kitchen as an island once or twice and in a laundry room as folding table and also computer table in another house. Thing has made the rounds. I want to do something better with our porch this year. Just not sure exactly what yet. The curtains are a start.

Chris

shades, your curtains are a great start. I've been thinking about putting some more colorful fabrics on our porch this year--probably won't finish until Labor Day. My younger DD has already asked for the table, when she moves into her first college apartment this summer. Another generation...

wantoretire, I took another look at the chair this morning. The hole has a depression around it, as if it had a washer bolted down. There are also tack-marks around the edges of the seat--it must have had an upholstered or leather-type seat cover in a previous life. I'd never noticed those marks before! Don't you love the clues to the past that can be found on old furniture?

Mama Goose says, "Don't you love the clues to the past that can be found on old furniture?"

I agree.
And I also discovered that I could blow up scanned copies of really old family photos and see all sorts of detail.

Like one of my grandmother taken when my mother was 1 year old, the next sister was about 2 years old, and I realized by dating the ages of my mother's younger brothers, that Grandma was pregnant with one of two more sons to come. She was already 40 when my mother was born. She had 10 kids in rural north Alabama.

But this picture was a time capsule. Knowing she was pregnant, and seeing the big ears of corn in the barbed wire fenced field in the background, and seeing the buggy standing horseless in the shade, and seeing the scuffed toes of the shoes of the two young girls, seeing the homemade long dress Grandma was wearing, seeing the two heavy coils of dark brown hair behind each of Grandma's ears, I could read her face. I realized why my Mother was always in need of affection--Grandma was suffering from depression! It was in her eyes. It was in the way she had her hand unconsciously grasping the dress worn by my mother, to keep her still. And it was in the slight slump of her shoulders and tilt of her head. Her eyes were not focused on anything, but were lost in her thoughts looking off to the side, waiting for the slow camera lens to do its job. Can I say this picture was the one I responded to most emotionally? I adore my grandma, who helped raise me and who gave me a sense of empowerment, a good pattern of what a strong woman can and should be.

With Mother's Day coming up, I am remembering the impact a strong and beloved woman had on my life. I hope I can pass it along to my DH's granddaughters, the only grandchildren I will ever have.

I recommend that you have your old family photos scanned at the highest resolution you can do. Then blow them up on your computer. Shoes, flower pots, the way the step on a house was repaired, the pride shown on the face of a couple standing in front of their new board/batten house not even painted, feeding a huge hog which was named and tamed, a son home from WWI in his Army uniform. It will make you want to cry for how simple and hard life was in those days.

ML, your words are so beautiful and eloquent. Thank you for reminding me of the strong women in my family.

WOW ML Great post. I have a picture of my Husbands Dad and his parents and the simple life. I think I will do just as you say and look deeper into what the picture really shows. It must be Easter and they are all dressed in same clothes but at two different houses. Tar paper shacks. Joe's Dad is in a DRESS They did that back then. We also have one of his great grandfather on a mule as sheriff of? Forgot the town in California.

I do not like to look at my young life pictures. I too was really depressed then. It does show. Never smiled. Over all of that now.

Chris

Shades, lovely old pictures! Look at the shoes, and if there is any lawn or garden showing, look for what is planted, how it is bordered, if there was any grass allowed to grow near the house. Do they show the whole house?

I remember that my paternal grandma, who taught me to love gardening, had beautiful rose bushes, but not one blade of grass. NO plant was close to the house. She swept her yard near the house every morning. One thing was free-range chickens, but mostly because it exposed snakes, and it also was a safe zone from brush fires. She used a wash pot on a fire outdoors to do her laundry. She also made the LYE from wood ashes which made lye soap or which turned hard corn into hominy. They slaughtered hogs after first frost and hung the meat in the smoke house to cure. My grandpa grew Spanish peanuts with a high oil content to feed his hogs, something new developed from the research of George Washington Carver in Alabama, so my grandpa was a forward thinking man, also the first one to buy a car, and my Daddy was only 12 and did the driving for him!!!

I was the first grandchild, and I remember so much of the simpler days before TVA electricity arrived or indoor plumbing. This part of Alabama was behind the times, so my DH tells me I had the experience of a 19th century childhood spliced onto a 20th century upbringing in Mobile, and now am still kicking in the 21st century.

My Daddy was the oldest child and they built him a 2-room house on the hill above my grandpa's house still on the same farm. It had shutters on it instead of glass windows.I think it had tarpaper, but maybe not, because it was so cold and my earliest memory was of snow on top of the bed covers as I slept between my parents. I know Mother was pregnant with my brother then, and I huddled against Daddy's back for warmth, because their two larger bodies kept the quilts from dropping down to cover me. The kitchen had no ceiling, it was open to the rafters. We did have a barn, and a milk cow, and Shorty, the half-Percheron horse with big bucket feet, who let me play underneath his belly. He was very careful about moving his feet, and sometimes would send me flying with a nudge of his muzzle.
GREAT memories, so much nostalgia for the time and the people and the place.

I do not think it is the amount of money you have that matters, it is the values you develop in life which can make you rich or poor.

Wonderful thoughts, ML. I have often looked at details in old pictures. It is so fascinating to see these 'slices' out of Real Life, rather than what some movie producer thinks life was like. I don't have many old pics, but I have a few - my problem is knowing who's in them. Most of the people that could tell me have passed away so I mostly guess.

Thank you too, for sharing your childhood memories. It's amazing when you really think about it. The song is true 'Everyone has a story'. Few people were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Most of us are just regular folks ...

quote I do not think it is the amount of money you have that matters, it is the values you develop in life which can make you rich or poor.
So true - you can't take it with you. It's how you use your resources (for good or selfish reasons) and your attitude that makes for a happy life. (My mom used to call it 'storing up treasures in heaven') Some folks in the most miserable circumstances have more joy than many of us will ever know - it's their faith and attitude that makes life happy.

Chris, when did men wear dresses for pictures? and why?

I did look at the one picture I have up. since both were close to the same I only put one up. There is lots to see. I will see about getting a picture of it to post as it really is interesting. There is a vegetable garden planted all around the house. Not much of a formal yard just veggies. Not sure on the dress deal. But for sure it is Joe's Dad.

Chris

Prairie, do not mean to butt in, but children of old were clothed in dresses when they were toddlers. It makes sense to me, that before they were potty trained good, it was easier to change wet pants under a dress more than yanking off wet and messy pants.

They used to make little pants for boys with lots of buttons, so they would be unbuttoned from the shirt, and the front or back half of the bottom trouser would then make the diaper accessible. Even onsies made today have snaps in the crotch for the same reason.

we have a screened deck. we had it built on top of our existing deck, and then we put screen under the bottom of it to keep bugs from coming up through the floor. we left part of the deck open, and we put the grill there. we LOVE it!!

Oh, love your house and porch. Now we need to see more.

The comment about men in dresses. I have a photo from the early 20s with the same. The gal that is doing genealogy for my mother's side of the family said my two uncles were dressed this way because they were too poor to afford anything else. I remember stories from mom and what they had to go through. They used what they had and it wasn't always what we would consider acceptable.

What a nice porch. Can we see more?

Ah, you're right about the wee dresses when the boys were little. It's sometimes hard to tell from pictures whether they are girls or boys.
I can also understand about the 'using what you have'. I guess I had this mental image of older men wearing dresses which I couldn't figure out the reason for. :)

Emagineer, the woman who is doing genealogy for your mama's side of the family is off base with boys in dresses being a sign of poverty. No way.

It was a sign of the times. Little kids, toddlers if you will, all wore the same clothing until they were about 3. It was true of the well-to-do and the less well off. I think the change to pants--trousers as most called them then--was made around the time they were totally potty trained. It was a "rite of passage" to show they were becoming really big boys.

Around the same time, the ringlets of a boy's uncut hair was also cut. Another rite of passage.

Think about it. Laundry was done usually on Mondays, so wet clothing would be soured or ruined if held. A woman's work was not automated as it is today, and laundry was a heavy duty job. Diapers were part of raising babies but with toddlers they did not want to add another layer of clothing when the kid was not potty trained. Easy on and easy off, for boys AND girls, dictated an OPEN BOTTOMED GARMENT so a wet didy was stripped off without having to also put trousers into the dirty laundry.

Well off families had help, but there were many other chores for them than keeping the male children of the house DRY. I'd say that economics had a little to do with the garment selection for small children, but convenience and social custom was also a factor.

My mother in law must have gone this direction. I never understood why there was a baby picture of my husband in a "dress". Thanks for historical info, love hearing about these things.

The photos I have though are of 8 and 10 year old uncles. They were in an orphanage for a very long time and perhaps the same reason also for the dresses.

Newbie. GREAT screened porch. Your house looks so nice.

I forgot all about looking closer at the picture. Home from a short stint at work this morning ,unplanned but happened, so will see if I can get a better picture of this.

Chris

Newbie, I love your deck. I just showed it to dh & said "wouldn't this be neat so we could enjoy our deck without the bugs?" His reply, "Um." Not sure what that means, but at least it wasn't no.

thanks! here are some more pics. our only complaint is that we wish it was bigger! we kept the original footprint of the deck and just screened the upper part. if i did it over again, i would have raised the lower portion and screened the whole back of the house.
before

inside with recessed lighting and ceiling fan

had to install a kitty door so our cats could enjoy the porch year round!

four reasons why we decided to screen our deck:

AW How sweet. What a perfect excuse to screen your deck. Really does look nice.Thanks for the added pictures.

Chris