Wood deck? Is there already a roof over the part of the deck you want to screen in? Or are you thinking about a ’cage’ screened area?

I see many patios that are half screen and half open here in Florida. Its nice when you can open the doors to the house without worrying about bugs entering.

Keep in mind, critters will come up from under the deck boards too. Your flooring for the screened section will have to be solid. Some people think they can screen under the deck to stop the bugs. That’s fine for awhile until you start having to spend hours vaccuming debris from those cracks.

I would do it for sure. I see lots of half and half decks. Put an outdoor rug on it if you’re worried about something coming up through it. I have a screened porch and absolutely ove it.

My sister has screening under her deck to keep them out of her screen room, but it's only been a few years that she's had it. I was thinking more about an all-season rug, but I'll talk to my contractor about the floor.

Edited to add - yes, it's a wood deck.

Absolutely.

We put a screened porch on half of a wood deck in one of our homes. We put an open pergola-type structure over the open part of the deck that allowed us to hang plants and grow vines over that area. The screened porch end of the deck was outside of a set of large sliding doors from our eat-in kitchen area. An unexpected result of the porch was loss of quite a bit of light into that part of the kitchen.. In hindsight, I would have included a few skylights in the porch roof, and a ceiling fan.

We did have mosquitos (and mice) come up under the deck floor. Screening under it would have been a problem because I grew a lot of flowering plants and ferns that shed debris for 3 seasons. This was a long time ago and I don't remember outdoor area rugs being a thing then so we just lived with it, swept it with a broom and tried to keep the screen on the slider closed to keep critters out of the house.

I would go with the 14 by 12. The other end of the deck is a cooking spot. You could put a small open BBQ pergola over the space. Sort of make it into an outdoor serving center.

We needed to replace our deck and then ended up tearing it down (would have been required no matter what) and building a screened porch. If I were you, I would go for the larger size. You won't regret it. I spend so much time on our porch. We have a dining area and a sitting area. I am out there reading every day or just enjoying doing nothing except looking out at the trees and yard and we usually have our meals out there, too.

If you have a dog, make sure the lower half of the door is wood. Ours had a hole in the screen from our rotten and wonderful dog (it now has several)! Ordering a new one before spring!

I hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine!

ETA: Oh and we had screening put under our porch which is essentially a second level one since our main floor is upstairs (house built on a slope).

Do you want a roof for shelter from rain and the sun? Our screened porch is in a SE corner created by the DR and breakfast room. It has two skylights in the eastern slant of the peaked roof. There's also a big shade tree to the south. Will a dog or cat rip the screening if you go all the way down to the deck? If you grill, leave a small open space on the deck where smoke can rise. Will you want space to sunbathe?

There was an aggregate patio on the SW side of our prior home. We built a screen cage over it, but it was too hot out there by noon. Also, bugs killed every plant in the cage because birds were screened out. We had to remove the top of the cage in winter (snow).