Our front porch bugs me...it's really not so much a porch as an entryway, which is fine, but the blah white columns? Any way to tell if they're load-bearing from a photo? Because I'd like to chop the top halves out and cap them off...they look so cheesy to me and completely betray the cape cottage style of the home.

Our neighbors have a nearly identical home to ours without the posts, but their porch roof isn't a big wonky triangle, it's just a nice roof peak with the same cornices on the sides. I'm wondering if an owner in our home's past thought it would look better to enclose the thing with siding and a flush light fixture? (Morons they were, if so.)

I'm prepared to ask a structural engineer...if it isn't obvious...but it never hurts to ask the houzz hive mind.