I had a feeling I would get comments on the shingles :) The roof is high on the list, I promise! I agree that the house would probably look best with the porch re-opened, but my house is tiny (1150 sq ft), and for now the porch serves as the cat's room (a place for her to get away from the dog.) Also, I live just off of the main street in my little town (minden, nv), which gets quite a bit of traffic, including trucks passing through. The traffic can be loud, so it's nice to have the porch windows as a buffer to the noise. Functionally speaking, I would like to have at least a couple of windows that open, but they do not all need to open. Light and the view are not really big issues. I still have the original (pink!) honeycomb shades that came with the house when I bought it. Even though they are 3/4 drawn I still have plenty of light. With the new windows I plan to replace the shades with something lighter, so I think regardless of the new window layout I'll have more light. Sorry I wasn't clear on the photos. The first two are the current windows, and the following are photoshopped ideas. And I have no idea what the style of my house is...don't know if it really has a style. It's very plain (no fancy molding details), it's shaped like a shoe box, it's pretty old for this area (1930), and I love it!

We have had these windows for about 5 years. Ours are the ones that slide up and down-like regular windows. I got the dark vinyl as our porch faces west. I can raise all to windows to the top, bottom or inbetween. We use our porch from mid March til mid November. We are in east Tennessee. It rarely gets to freezing on the porch-but plants won't winter over there either. We have one pane that the vinyl needs to be replaced as the dog hit it with him paw. It is only a small tear-so not in a hurry. The windows are a special order and ours took about 2-3 weeks to come in. Would I do it over--in a heartbeat! We have an attached deck--and rarely use it-bugs, heat and sun! Our dealer told us that the greatest majority of their porches are sold in Chicago! Good luck--and enjoy!

My porch additions in SE Texas, screened, painted, shingled to match existing, with a broom finished concrete floor usually start at 50 per sq/ft based on 200sq/ft or larger. As they get smaller the price per square goes up, and as they get larger the price goes down. See Ya, Kelly

Loretta sez:"I have a small flatscreen tv on the porch. So, one of my favorite things on sunday after church, is to sit on the porch and watch bad movies on the SyFy network!" Oh (groan) those old sci-fi movies were the worst. But at least you did not see too much gore like the newer monster movies have. I sure cannot watch those. Last night I found THE HOLIDAY, where the two young women swap houses for Christmas. It was full of eye candy for house lovers. I think it was my third time to see it. Now that we changed our phone system to cable, I got a lot more channels than before, and the cost is less than if I stayed with ATT phone service. I have yet to see the caller ID on the screen, but I'm sure it will show up when I figure out the settings. We're also getting some of the music channels, no spoken commercials (some text on screen but who watches music play?) I like the jazz, blues, classical, and less violent stuff. Nice. Sorry if I seem to stray off topic here. But sitting on a porch relaxing brings up such images. I think you are getting your money's worth from that porch, Loretta. I bet you have room for a glass of wine and a plate of snacks too.