I love side porches! In many of the older neighborhoods with beautiful traditional homes in our area, a side porch must have been a requirement. It's unusual for them not to have one. The side porches are usually recessed a few feet from the front of the house and extend out for 15' or so. Originally the porches were screened to "catch the breeze." Now, with air conditioning, many of them are glassed in. Whether glassed or screened, the porches afford wonderful landscape views on three sides. We'll have a 10' wide screen porch on the side of our new home---just wide enough to accomodate the 5' porch swing my uncle made for me 25 years ago. If you have a screen porch, you must add a porch swing! lkplatow, I love your porch. It's a great size.

if you cannot find any old screens i would try just one to use as a sample. you are describing a two lite slider window measure the screen opening then deduct 1/4" in height to allow new screen to pop in typically you will get two stainless steel tension springs they would go on top on a slider and on one side on a double hung. if you could maybe a neighbor has the same windows you could eliminate the guessing also a picture or two would help them in guiding you mike

Thanks for the suggestions! We have Oleanders to hide the houses on the sides (very residential neighborhood). We are trying to shake things up with something different (also, I am not a big fan of Oleander with no flowers during winter time). But it's definitely a great option to keep in mind, thank you! The palm you are referring to requires a lot of maintenance, it needs to be professionally trimmed once every two years, and sprayed against the Red Palm Weevil (some kind of beetle that came from Asia to Europe and eats and kills that breed of palm trees) every 6 to 8 weeks. Treatment cost roughly 10 to 20€ per tree and the grooming can be very pricy (last year we paid about 500€ for the big one you see in the pic and 4 small ones). Also, once it grows, the only way to control its growth is to remove it. We are keeping this one and going to keep 2-3 of the ones we have but we are actually in the process of removing some.

It’s more common to see the wrap around type of front porch where part of the porch is screened and part left open. For an independent side porch there are several examples of a porte cochere on the side of traditional homes where the roofline is level with the front porch, t he look would work for a screened porch addition. Sometimes there is a deck above, or a 2nd floor addition, maybe a sleeping porch on top of the screened porch. A one story pitched roof would depend on the upper windows on the side.