in my opinion porches have now turned into decks, not always as welcoming as sitting 'out front' watching the people pass by and chatting with those you know but a bit more private from possible nosey neighbors. While I love porches, front, side or otherwise I think I'd rather have that square footage inside the house where it would be more useful to me. These day who takes the time to relax and sit on the front porch with a glass of lemonade when they could be in an air conditioned house watching some reality show about other people doing scripted things? LOL I have many fond memories of Aunts, Uncles and cousins sitting on the porch during the summer to cool off, possibly turning the handle of the old ice cream freezer as us kids played tag and hide and seek. How I wish I could go back to those days and sit and LISTEN to my parents and Aunts and Uncles conversations.

I love old homes, and porches always entrant me.

Growing up, our house had a front porch. Oh, the memories. The way the homes on the block were constructed, they were up on top of a terrace. We had a sidewalk in the usual place--down by the street. Then you walked up a whole flight of outside stairs. And there was a sidewalk right in front of all our houses, that extended the length of the block--neighbors used it to visit back and forth. It was only feet from the porch, so in the summer, you'd sit out, and sooner or later someone would wander by and visit. My bedroom was in the attic--very hot in the summer, so I used to often sleep on the old metal glider on the screened in porch.

And speaking of heat? I think that's the biggest reason for the change in porches. Back in those days, no one had air conditioning. The porch was really the summer living room---the place you could go to get some air to relieve the heat, and where you could entertain in the summer. It was an important part of the homespace.

The house I have now isn't too old (1950's). It has a glassed in sunporch--which is too cold to use for much in the winter, and way too hot in summer. It also has a huge deck out back--which we've put a roof on to make it more user friendly. But it's no old-fashioned porch. The one big advantage, I guess is that our house is on a corner, so sometimes people passing on the side street will come up to the deck to 'sit a spell', at least. I'd prefer a front porch though.

Very interesting post.

Our house is a Victorian built just after the turn of the last century, with a nice front porch where we have two porch swings. For three seasons of the year, we hang out for awhile after dinner and chat with whoever happens by. We also have a nice private brick patio out back, but I would hate to give up the front porch.

Interesting. My sister has a home built in late 1800's, it has a big wrap-around porch on the front and one side. My next door neighbor and I have the same 50's era home. We have porches/ patios in back. He recently spent $20,000 constructing a front "portico". Everything old is new again!

There's a lot of things about the older houses I like including porches but I prefer an enclosed porch. As far as moving to the side or back I would suspect is more dictated by zoning ordinances and setbacks.

Having been replaced by patios and decks porches are more out of style for a lot of reasons. Not a great idea to be firing up the Weber kettle on a wooden porch, not even wise on a deck. Outdoor activities have changed more. And the issue of heat/air conditioning has already been pointed out.

I've wanted to add a 3-season porch but am pretty sure it wouldn't be allowed.

Porches back in the day when people used to walk to get somewhere. And you knew your neighbors...

Hi Rosemary, good to see you here!

This is a picture of the porch on the house we bought when we moved to Waynesboro, in 1965.

While we lived there I met a lady who was born in this house, and she is now in her 90's. It is built with native river rock. I stayed on there for 6 years after my DH died. Loved that house!!

Sue

I remember walking to school as a kid passing all these old houses with wrap around porches and old ladies sitting there drinking tea and speaking to us as we walked to school. My parents built a front porch on the house they built in 1950 but the next year built on in the back which is the only place they ever sat. The front porch was a waste of space . My 175 year old house does not have a front porch and never did. Oh, it's there but it's very small, certainly not for more than one person to sit on. In the 1920's, people put a very large back porch on my house which is the only place we sit.

Way back in the day many porches were a must to help keep the house cool, they added shade to all the windows and the deeper the better. With no air conditioning they were very helpful in keeping cool both outside and inside, the addition of ceiling fans helped also. My grandparents huge old farm house had porches on all sides just for that reason. Many of them were actually sleeping porches where they slept in the very hot days to catch a little breeze. I remember fondly the sleeping porches. Hurricane Audrey tore the top story off that house with us in it and it became a one story but maintained a large front porch that was screened and a smaller back porch. I was very young when that happened but I do still remember.

Rosemary, porches are my very favorite thing. Growing up, we always lived in big, old houses. My favorite had a porch that covered the whole front and part of one side. It had a big front porch swing and those old aluminum (I think) chairs. Sometimes our parents would let us sleep on the porch if it was really hot. What a treat! There was a door at the back of the side and, of course, one at the front. Every spring, the porch had to be scrubbed to make it ready for summer. We scrubbed the floor with brushes.

The swing, which daddy had hooked up to the ceiling somehow, came down and also scrubbed within an inch of it's life. Back then, people walked around the block and stopped to chat in the evening hours. I spent many hours on that swing reading my way through Nancy Drew and Cheryl Ames, Student Nurse. As I got older, that porch swing would help stretch out a date, while we sat on the swing and chatted (and smooched a little, of course.)

It was also the place where our family entertained (well, that's debatable) the neighbors with our singing. We all learned early on in life to harmonize and like to sing those old songs.

At the end of the day, it was a place parents could relax after a busy day and discuss the issues of the day. All the world's problems were settled on that porch--and more than once.

Everytime I see a picture of our old house, I wish I could buy it. But then I'd have to move to Indiana and that's not an option.

I know how much you love old homes and I do, too. I just never thought that much about them until you started posting about them (and I saw you on TV once, years ago).

Porches of the past held a lot of charm and did enhance a house. I was priviledged to live in the era when porches faded away. At that time, there existed older homes with porches. As a child, I whiled away many an hour on a porch on a rainy, summer afternoon. Our old, small farm house had 2 utility porches, but there existed in the neighborhood finer porches.

Where I lived, misquitos were abundant and to enjoy a porch in summer, it had to be screened. Before TV and radio, the porch was the place to wind down the day before retiring to bed. After dinner and the dishes washed, a family could sit on the porch in the dying summer breeze, watch the afterglow of color that followed sunset. As the day sounds quieted, an orchestra of night sounds began. The birds quieted, the evening insects began their calls, and in the distance, one might hear the call of hight birds such as a whip-poor-will. Night hawks did their dance in the sky as they went about their business of scooping up insects. Finally, fireflies came out to dot the landscape with pin points of light. When the house had cooled enough to permit sleep, it would be time for bed. The kerosene lamps would be extinguished and as one drifted off to sleep, that might be interrupted for a moment by the blood curdling call of a screech owl in the distance. One more sound would be heard: that of the steam whistle of the night train chuffeling its way across the landscape. Sounds made several miles away could be heard due to the deep quietness not experienced in today's world. (Astronomers complain about light polution; The general public has sound polution.)

I propose that porches faded away in the 1900s due to cost and upkeep. A porch was an added cost to a house. As houses shrank, home owners began to view the porch space as better used as an additional room.

Many porches had wood floors. These were exposed to the weather and subject to rotting. Rot at the bottom of support posts was a problem. No matter how hard the home owner tried to keep these surfaces covered with enamel paint, those eventually succombed to rot and had to be rebuilt. A porch was a money pit.

The best porches had concrete floors and other concrete feaures. Not many house were constructed this way; the majority used wood for porches and this was in the era before chemically treated wood.

As time progressed from 1900, porches faded away. The final blow was following World War 2 when a big demand arose to provide housing for returing veterans and to house the start of the baby boom. The three bedroom ranch style house without a porch became popular. Cost was a factor.

After 50 years of porchless houses, the public is returning to the idea of a porch, but it is in a different form. The porch has returned as an unheated sun room. This room can be primitive and capable of being opened to the elements to an enclosed, uheated room, to a room in which heat and air conditioning could be added.

I grew up in a big old house. After my mom died in 1998 we had to sell the house. I still live just outside the same town so I see it every week when I drive by it to go to church.

If I ever hit the lottery, I WILL have that house. I'll have to pick it up and move it but it will be mine. So many happy memories.

Our front porch was the old wood, then replaced by poured cement like jemdandy referred to. We kept the original roof, only replacing the floor, rails and pillars. Our ceiling was walnut slats. Sigh, beautiful. I spend hours and hours of my life on that porch swinging on the swing. Or sitting in the old rounded back metal chairs. Or sitting with my grandparents on the metal glider. We also had long flower boxes on each side of the side steps. A rainbow of petunias were planted in them every summer.

Our parents gave my 5 siblings and me a wonderful, loving, happy childhood. I miss them, and that time of my life very much.

I don;t think a home looks "finished" without a porch.

Rosemary, it is wonderful to see you here! I have missed you.

I never lived in a house with a porch, until we moved here in 1994. This house has a porch that goes across the entire front of the house (50'), and then wraps around about 25' on the side of the house. On the back of the house, we have a porch that spans the entire back from the main level, and another that spans the entire back from the upper level. We've spent a great deal of time on the porches, and it's especially nice since we are in a secluded area with total privacy.

Thanks for the many responses!

It's interesting to read these reminiscences of old porches. For years, I always wanted a big "wrap-around" front porch. However, now I really love my "secluded" back (glassed-in) porch. It's so peaceful and happy and PRIVATE!!!

:)

When I was a kid, people would sit outside the front of their homes in the evening and greet anyone who walked by. Another "custom" was to sit in your attached garage with a huge screen door and watch whoever passes by. People were much friendlier then.

love those pics and the swing, your sun room reminds me a lot of my current sun rooms. This is mine. The pic turned very blurry for some reason.

try another section of the room

Wow, that's a BIG room!!! Ours is 12 x 14, which isn't so big, but we surely do enjoy it.

I thought about going with that same tile (that you have), but in the end, I opted for the pink/rose-colored wall-to-wall. That tile looks real good!

Problem with the carpet is, the two-legged and four-legged creatures track in a lot of stuff.

thanks, I was happy to see the tile when we bought the house, I have bad allergies so prefer tile. It's the big tiles too which I like. I only wish I could find where they bought it because I would love to use the same tile in some other rooms, like the kitchen. currently there's a whiteish tile in the kitchen, bath, laundry room that I don't like.

It is a very large room, one part is my office, the back end faces out to the back yard and we use it as a sun room, we also have wicker furniture. I do have a swing but it is outside.

Would love to have a bigger porch out back.

I would love to have a sunroom! Rosemary, your porch and den are the most wonderful rooms imaginable!! Raven, your sunroom would be an incredible quilting studio. I am so envious....

Rosemary, I love your beadboard ceiling and swing. I want to live there!

I've always loved a sunporch. My mother had a sunporch throughout most of her life (and through a couple different moves) and she just loved it out here.

BTW, I also love the beadboard ceiling. :) We bought the house from the estate of an old man who'd built this home in 1962. There were only a couple layers of paint on that 50-year-old ceiling in the porch, so when I painted it white, it looked brandy-new.

When we got the house, the porch had a dark yellow ceiling, yellow walls, yellow trim (dark yellow plus nicotine) and plastic green fake grass something (with a rubber backing) on top of the cement floor. Pretty unpleasant.

The pink/white combo took a couple coats but it had a transformative effect.

That wicker swing was a gift from my husband for our 2nd anniversary. :)

I have a porch all the way across the front of my house....almost never sit there...but the cats do. I especially love the sun porch, which is big windows on two sides. it opens off of the kitchen and another door off of a center hall that goes to the bedrooms. We are putting bead board ceilings on both the front porch and the sun porch. We had an old house in Port La Vaca, built in 1906. It had a wrap around front porch with 9 columns. We sold it in '79 but every time we go through there, we drive by the house. It has been added on to....not in any fashion to go with the style of the house and they replaced the columns with very
spindly porch posts. It looks silly. Makes me a little sad, but we weren't spending much time down there and were expecting a baby....so we sold it.

I'm planning to do some redecorating in our kitchen and family room. The kitchen is one of the most blah rooms you've ever seen. I want it to have some of the appeal of an older house, even though it isn't. One of the improvements I want to make in both rooms is having beadboard ceilings in both rooms with pot lights in the kitchen ceiling. Now, we have a flourescent light in the kitchen and popcorn ceiling. Same ceilings all over the house. I want to change the backsplash from burgandy tiles to some neat brick tiles I found on line. And paint both rooms in a slate blue-gray and have an archway made between the living/dining area and the kitchen. Well, a girl can dream, can't she? But some of it will get done this year, for sure.

Rosemary, your DH sure knows you doesn't he? That was the perfect anniversary gift for you!!

Your room is beautiful. I would love to have one just like it. Love
old houses with circular porches.

I grew up in a brick and stucco Tudor style home built about 1900, the 3rd of 4 children. Mom and Dad bought the house two months before I was born, attracted by the street which was shaded by elms planted so long ago that the branches arched across the brick street to meet the branches of the trees from the other side of the street. By the time I was a pre teen, Dutch Elm disease had decimated our lovely greenery.

Our front porch was deep and went across the entire front of our large house. The house had a sun room in the back of the house upstairs, and that was my brother's room. Counting the sun room, there were 4 bedrooms upstairs. Off the kitchen was another room that was probably meant to be the help's bedroom. We used it as a play room.

The porch was constructed of the brick which was used on the first floor of the house, with a solid brick "railing" about 3 feet high enclosing it. The wide cement flight of 6 or 8 steps that led to the porch and front door were flanked by wide brick sides, the kind on which a stone lion could have been comfortably ensconced.

The living room windows formed the back wall of the porch, but the sides and front of the porch were open above the stone capped, brick mini walls. Tall brick pillars supported the solid roof, which was lined with a ceiling of varnished bead board. The floor consisted of 4 inch wide planks that Dad painted a blue grey every other year. The porch was furnished with a wide porch swing suspended from chains secured in the ceiling and those great springy metal outdoor chairs that also infrequently got a fresh coat of paint. When outdoor chaise lounges came into being, one was purchased for the porch too.

We lived on a street of many large houses, and so the families there included many children. Our porch was the gathering place for the kids on hot afternoons or after dinner. We played all sorts of games there, and late at night Dad could keep tabs on us from the living room as all the windows were open to provide a cross breeze into the house.

In the afternoons, we often played Mother May I on the steps, but the fun games were Telephone, 20 Questions and sometimes hearts or canasta. Telephone was especially entertaining as there were so many of us about the same age in the neighborhood, and one boy did not say his Rs correctly. So the message turned into the silliest garble that led to much laughter.

The porch was also base for the many night time games of Flashlight Tag or Hide and Seek around the yards of the surrounding houses.

On a hot summer evening, Mom and Dad often selected the porch to visit with friends who had come by for a chat.

In the winter as we returned from school, we would take off our boots and leave them against the back wall to dry before we entered the house.

The porch made our house look balanced and enhanced the design. My brother visited there on business several years ago and drove by the house we had not seen since 1960. It looks rather sad now with the front porch enclosed to make another room for the house.

Our house did have a small back porch off the kitchen, which was enclosed and utilitarian.

I live in a 100 year old home built as a duplex and now a condo. I'm on the second floor with a marvelous porch on the front overlooking the street. Love to entertain there in the summer! It is like a tree house and great for people watching. Also lovely in the fall when the sugar maples all around it change into brilliant reds and golds.

Photo for the above post!

Marita, that picture is BEAUTIFUL! Am I understanding that this is a 2nd floor porch in a 100-year-old house?

Because that looks like heaven.

Very, very nice.

BTW, I kinda feel sorry for the folks that have missed this thread. It's turned out to be one of the nicest threads I've seen on any forum!

Thanks so much for the pictures and the delightful memories.

Marita, that porch is just gorgeous! It looks so welcoming and comfortable. You sure were lucky to find it. Most condo builders don't use their imaginations so wonderfully!

All my life I have longed for a house with a large, preferably wrap-around porch but so far, it is not to be. The little bit of porch we had on this house was used this year to expand the kitchen a bit--the cheapest route on a necessary job. Your pictures and descriptions are absolutely delightful!! I'm envious of all who have a porch. :)

Patty43--I have to be a Bossy Bess and mention that your popcorn ceilings most likely have asbestos in them; will you be doing the work yourselves? There are sooooo many Gardenweb forums for every phase of remodeling, if you're interested.

city-county 0f Spokane

historic preservation office

Beautiful porches....all of them. I recall a lot of big houses around had sleeping porches.....a screened in porch off of an upstairs bedroom. I think that is a wonderful idea. If I lived in a two story house, I'd love to have one.

Thanks for the compliments. Yes, it is a 1913 house originally built as a duplex for an extended family (young family upstairs; widowed mother downstairs). It was made into condos about 10 years ago. It has all sorts of original arts and crafts/four square features, like stained glass windows and built ins--very typical for this area. The porch sold me on it because so many condos don't have outdoor living space.

Sheilajoyce has decribed our porch except our floor is maroon:

"The porch was constructed of the brick which was used on the first floor of the house, with a solid brick "railing" about 3 feet high enclosing it. The wide cement flight of 6 or 8 steps that led to the porch and front door were flanked by wide brick sides, the kind on which a stone lion could have been comfortably ensconced.

The living room windows formed the back wall of the porch, but the sides and front of the porch were open above the stone capped, brick mini walls. Tall brick pillars supported the solid roof, which was lined with a ceiling of varnished bead board. The floor consisted of 4 inch wide planks that Dad painted a blue grey every other year. The porch was furnished with a wide porch swing suspended from chains secured in the ceiling and those great springy metal outdoor chairs that also infrequently got a fresh coat of paint. When outdoor chaise lounges came into being, one was purchased for the porch too."

Instead of chaise longues, we have vintage metal chairs that accompany our swing. We use our porch daily in warmer weather, including when it rains. Our neighborhood is fairly densely packed with homes. Including us, there are loads of walkers in our neighborhood. Families are outdoors most every evening and we are excellent friends with many in our neighborhood. Porches encourage friendship!

The second major expense we incurred after moving into our 1919 bungalow was to have our porch stabilized. Underground water through the years had started to move the porch sideways from the house, cracking the mortar and moving the bricks out of line. Major excavation was needed for the installation of underground anchors and alot of masonry work was required to realign the brick....but we knew we didn't want to lose our porch!

This summer we'll be stripping white paint off the bearboard ceiling which we know was originally stained brown. After this project, the porch will be as good as 1919 new!

I don't make it to the Kitchen Table often anymore, but am so glad I did today! I love this post! We bought our first house a year and a half ago, and only have a small porch, but last summer were outside all the time. Our porch is big enough for 2 or 3 people to sit on the steps, but I still love it. We sat outside all the time, and also sat our chairs off to the right and left for when we had visitors. It's so nice to sit outside and watch the children in the neighborhood, and wave hello to neighbors coming and going. Can't wait for it to warm up so we can head outside again for the summer.

marita that is an amazing house! Just absolutely beautiful and looks so so well kept hard to believe it is that old looks so good.
I would love to sit on that porch up in the tree tops with the birds, I could spend hours there especially if I had a rocking chair or a swing!
Lovely!

I have an open porch across the front of my home & DH & I had our lunch there just about every day. I still take my lunch out a lot of the time and in the evening sit on the swing. People will go by and wave or toot & sometimes turn around to visit! The lady that he bought the farm from, stopped in one day with her daughter & her two young children. She asked if the swing was still on the porch & I said yes so she asked if they could take pictures of the g-kids as the daughter grew up there & used the same swing! I told them take as many pictures as they wanted & to show them the barn too. It made their day,as they lived in California & were just visiting in the area.

I love my porch! The first picture was taken right after the railing was painted (hence, no furniture). The third picture is my cousin's painting of the second picture. :-)

Thanks Raven! It is kind of an amazing area of old houses carefully preserved. I'm lucky to live here.

This is a different kind of porch.

Sjerin, I doubt if our popcorn ceiling contains asbestos. It was built in 1996. Shoot no, we aren't doing it ourselves. My DH will be 82 tomorrow :-) \

I am really enjoying this post. Sure takes you back to a far less stressed time--or maybe we were just too care-free to stress.

what a great topic...i had to stop and think, and aside from our current home, have never had a porch...as for our current one, we use it more of a work space than leasure..we don't have a garage...

as for our kids, 2 have them, 2 do not...