I recall that one new home builder here posted that his porch panels were all storm/screen doors, set up pretty much as you describe. Gosh, I can't remember who that was, but I think he changed out storms and screens on his 'doors' -- the whole panel on each was switched. Nuts, I can picture the house, at the top of a hill, with a garage that looked like a barn. The house was featured in a magazine.

Anyone recall?

FWIW, because we have a small dog, we designed our porch with a solid section at the bottom. Didn't want him punching through the screening at every squirrel sighting.

I believe you have to choose between a screened porch or a four season room. Personally, I prefer the screen porch and will attach a picture of mine.

My grandpa also preferred a screen porch. After his death my grandma had combination windows put on their screened porch at their lake cabin. It did make the area usable during rain, and extend the season. However it took away from that wonderful outdoorsy season feel that the screen porch affords. When the combination windows are open the exposed screen is much smaller than when the window was all screen. As for my own, large screens allow you to see the scenery without all those window frames breaking up the view.

My screen porch has the wood on the bottom 18 inches or so, as the previous poster mentioned makes it safe for small dogs and such.

BTW, I live in Minnesota and can only use my screen porch for a portion of the year. But I love it so much I would never glass it in. Then I would consider it the same as being indoors. I am fine with a jacket and a cup of coffee as late as October. Plus, it can function as a walk-in cooler around Thanksgiving!

Here is a link that might be useful: our screened in porch

I like your philosophy and your porch, Neesie. That's exactly the kind of screened porch I want on our new house.

Thank you, frog hopper!

I've actually lived here for 15 years so my mind is set.

You can expect to be pressured by many people who will tell you to glass it in so you can use it year round. Almost all visitors to my (then) new house made those comments. But I live here! Let them glass in their own porch.

neesie, I love your bird houses, so cute. Tell me, I noticed a photo what looked to be a garage floor. Is it? What material was used on it? It's very nice.

I'm no help, but do have some comments. We have a porch like nessie. Our bottom was something like 24". Be sure to your building code because our building code required our solid bottom to be higher than the 24" that was built so we had to add what sort of looks like railings above the solid part to get our occupancy permit. My mother did the same as nessie's father and added combination sceen/windows to her screened in porch and she did preserve the breeze, but it did change the feel of the porch. We have a neighbor that has plexiglass panels that they put in in the fall and winter just to keep it cleaner I think, but that is a lot of glass to keep clean. Even the combination screen/windows in my mother's porch were a lot of glass to keep clean and you really do want the glass to be clean to enjoy your porch. We are considering the plexiglass panels, but haven't made any decisions yet--we are in Wisconsin so it is always mosquito season. We've had lots of rain this year and have more mosquitos than usual this year and are really glad to have the porch! We have tongue and groove douglas fir for our floor and think it's a great floor for a porch. Good luck.

I found it best to look for a local aluminum shop that specializes in porches and enclosures. The one we found did a great job at a lower price than HD or Lowe's quoted.