Current back of screened-in porch. We will be extending the room about 8 feet.

Side view of current porch.

View from inside of porch. The view of the trees extends behind our property and the neighbor's houses.

[Traditional Dining Room[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-dining-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_722~s_2107) by Peachtree City Architects & Designers Historical Concepts

Inspiration photo.

Love that room! Your 3 seasons room is going to be wonderful, but I sure hate to see you mess up your beautiful grounds. Big project you are planning.

I vote for mullions like your photo. Are you adding 8' off the end of the porch? Will you be opening the windows during warm summer days? If not, will the room be air-conditioned?

We are considering putting in plexiglass inserts into our screened porch divides to give us a few more months of use each year and to keep pollen out when spring comes along. They would be removed in the summer. I'd love to use real windows, but that is so costly.

newhomebuilder - Thx for your input! Yes, we will add 8 ft off the end of the porch. My DH put in the planter around the porch; he will redo the section at the end after it's enlarged. We'll need to move the roses & perennials. Our yard on the side of the house where they'll bring in equipment needs re-landscaping anyway, so no biggie if they trample it some. But yes, it's work! Our screened porch needs repair, so we figured it's a good time to upgrade.

Yes, we will open the porch during the summer. No a/c is planned for now. We will put in 2 ceiling fans. We have one now; it provides a lot of cooling. The plan is to have some kind of heating (perhaps simple baseboard) to extend the usage of the porch into the late fall & even winter (we are in the Midwest).

The plexiglass option is a good one. It will be nice to extend the usage period of your porch! I actually wanted to use stock storm doors to enclose the porch, removing the glass in the warm seasons. But DH doesn't want to remove/store/replace the storms each year. So, we're going to bite the bullet and add the windows. We have a good contractor who is very reasonable, & the windows are on sale now, so that helps. But still a sizable chunk, and I'm sweating the decision about the grilles!

Honestly, don't sweat the grilles--although I know/understand your hesitation. We added a 15X18 three season porch about 9 years ago. We have Andersen casement windows along two sides and have a 10' French door slider along the other and automatically ordered the snap-in grilles for all. Once the construction was finished and it was time to put the grilles in, we almost didn't because we thought they'd ruin the view. We popped them in anyway and have never looked back. They look great and coordinate well with our other windows on the house. Good luck with your room. We absolutely love ours.

What are you using for the walls?

goldengirl327 - Thank you so much for sharing your story! I'm relaxing a bit. My hubby wants to put the grilles in now; he saw an enclosed porch with them while walking the dog tonight and thought it looked fine. We're thinking the clear glass will look boring, and you don't see too many clear double hungs these days.

Of course, I polled my neighbors; the majority say to keep the windows clear to maximize the view! The differing opinions make me hesitant. Your experience makes me think perhaps the stakes aren't as high as I'm making them! Also, I just found another inspiration picture that has the grilles.

Thx again!

newhomebuilder - Re the walls, I'm not entirely sure, as we're meeting with the contractor next week to discuss details. We are going with the largest windows we can, so there will be little wall space. Probably drywall and framing posts between the side windows; drywall on both sides of the triple window (I may put sconces there). The "wall" next to our sliding door from the kitchen onto the porch will be left as is. It is brick.

We will have a knee wall to house the electrical. I want the minimum, as I like to look at my flowers around the porch. The minimum is 18 inches; any lower than that and we would need tempered glass. We're thinking of some sort of simple panels for the knee wall. Perhaps trim added to rectangular sections.

The ceiling will be beadboard. We won't have room for transoms above the side windows, so perhaps shelves to house speakers, lights, etc. (like in the first inspiration picture).

Sounds beautiful!

I had forgotten that my parents had a similar room. It was actually the room that they "lived" in - a sunroom. They had window grids and very little wall space between windows.

In this photo you can see the woods behind their home (although there is a glare) and the grids do not distract.

newhomebuilder - Lovely! Thanks for sharing the photo. We will have something similar between the windows. The contractor said he needs a minimum of 5 inches, so we may have a bit of wall space between the side windows.

I'm going to raise our blinds today & get the feel for looking through windows with grids. RIght now we have wood blinds with tapes on most of the windows (and we can still see the view!). In my "overanalysis" I will try and cut & paste on this photo to try & simulate. This photo is our porch from last winter. I do love the view!