Sue, two of our porches are kind of 3-season porches, but only because our weather is nice enough to use them three seasons of the year. None of them, so far, is screened in . . . unfortunately.
I love your idea of adding one that's screened in and that will to take advantage of your water views. Nice! My only suggestion would be to keep in mind your furniture placement options ~ now and for the future~ when planning your screens & windows. Too low and you may limit your options or chance getting them damaged by furniture, feet or knees.
Lynn

Sue, our house isn't done yet so I can't show you pictures of it yet, but when I designed our house, the sunroom started out as a porch. The foundation is not the same as the rest of the house, but I wish it was. We used 6x6 treated wood posts for it. Some day we will put hardy board around it and stucco it so it matches. The room is 14 x 47 and will not be heated or cooled. It will be insulated and sheetrocked though, and finished like a regular room. It has large windows all around that I can open if weather permits. We will have a fireplace in there so we can use the room more in the winter, and 4 ceiling fans to help cool it in the summer. We had a 14 x 20 screened porch at our old house that I really did love, but if it rained hard things got wet and it was hard to keep it clean, since it was open to the elements all the time. That's the main reason I decided to make this one more like a room than a porch. We do have a large open porch on the front and will have another open porch on the back. but this sunroom is where we spend all our time, even now while we are building the house.

We have a three season room and has now become a four season one...

We had a deck that we never used, so we enclosed it with sliders. I wanted full length windows and the sliders were the easiest option. We had to redo the deck flooring because to support the roof they needed to add more footers. Our room is 12x20 and it's wonderful. My husband has since installed a small flat panel TV out there and last winter I had a gas line run through the crawl space in the basement to the exterior wall and we had a gas wall heater installed. so now, even though it's not totally insulated like a true foundation four season room, we use it year round.

Here's a couple photos during the construction and when it was first done, before we got some new furniture.

I love our screened in three season porch. It is one of the things that influenced us to buy our present house. Since we didn't build it I can't comment on the cost or the building process. I do know that it has posts sunk about six feet into our lower cement patio. The walls are mostly screen with roughly two feet on the bottom portion made of wood (for safety, children & dogs falling through I guess!)

ccombs noted that it was hard to keep clean because it is open to the elements. I find that it is dusty and grimy after the winter and it needs a spring cleaning. It is easily done with a hose. When I'd use a mop I found I was just moving the grime around no matter how many times I rinsed. Once I got the hose out and "pressure washed" it dried nicely. Every few years I put a coat of Thompsons Water Seal on it and the summer rain beads up and doesn't leave any residue. (It's just winter that seems to leave the grime).

We also have wonderful views so I appreciate looking out large expanses of screen instead of windows which would have frames and when open, would only open part way. My grandma converted her screen porch on her cabin to all windows and it totally changed the atmosphere. Not that it was bad but it was more like being inside instead of outside and the view was compromised.

I can't seem to post a direct picture on this website so I'll send a link of both interior view and exterior.

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

Exterior of screened in porch. Footings are sunk about 6 feet deep into cement patio.

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

Thanks for the pics, neesie and caroleoh! I like the idea of the sliders but I think that wouldn't work for us because we have two dogs who would probably push on the bottom of the screens. The pictures helped to remind me of that!

We are doing a screened in porch on our log cabin, along with some other remodeling. I can hardly wait till it is finished. We are putting in a slate floor, so hope that it won't be too hard to keep clean. In Florida we have a lanai that is all screened it, so we are used to having to clean that.

{{!gwi}}

We have a raised ranch style home with a walkout basement. It has a very large deck off the main floor, about 16'X30'. We had a poured concrete patio put under the deck, and the underside was completely finished with soffit and pot lights.

From the backyard:

Last summer, I was at the Home Show looking for an awning for our top deck. It didn't work out, but I did meet a fellow from a local company that builds screen rooms and porches. The mosquitoes were unbelievably horrible, so a screen room sounded like a great idea. Naturally, he tried to upsell us to include a specialty product - a flexible but durable plastic "window" to cover the screens. We looked at one of his finished rooms and decided to go ahead with both the screens and the windows. We have not regretted it since!

This picture was taken to show my new furniture, but you can see the windows in the background:

I could take a better picture for you if you like. In the summer, the windows slide all the way up the top (or the bottom) to offer unobstructed views through the screens.

Our hot tub is in the screen room, and we use it comfortably all winter long (and when I say winter, I mean it - we live in central Alberta!), in temperatures as cold as -30. We have a propane powered patio heater that we turn on to take the worst of the chill out of the air and it can warm up to above freezing surprisngly quickly (especially with the hot tub lid open).

Carrie

Here is a link that might be useful: The company that we dealt with