Gary, I'm glad I don't have to live where you do. Even growing up in Joisey, I never encountered such cynicism. What's it like not to trust people? What's it like having to worry about being "taken advantage" of all the time? Gee, we see our neighbors walking down the road and they end up on the porch talking for an hour. Last winter I was in the general store and these young snow bunnies came in looking for directions to the interstate. This old grizzled Vermonter said "Going to New York?" "Yeah, we want to get back to civilization." "Ah, yes New York City. A place where you must lock your doors with 3 locks. A place where you have a beautiful park and are afraid to go into it at night, A place where you can be shot or stabbed for your nice coat or new sneakers. A place where can get your car radio stolen just because someone else wants it." "And you call THAT 'civilized!'" Another incident happened a short time ago. A kid was working at a local gas station and decided to just quit. He locked the door and left. When the owner found out, he realized the pumps were left on. But when he got to the station he opened the door and found money inside. People slipped their money under the door when they got gasoline. He read the pumps and counted the money. "I owe somebody change!" Would people do that where you live or would they "take advantage" of the situation? I do craft shows for a living. There was a teeneager in the booth next to me last week helping her parents. She saw a $20 bill on the ground in front of the both and picked it up. A short time later two teenage girls were looking for something near the booth. The young lady asked what they was looking for. "I lost 20 dollars". That young lady gave her the bill she found. She could have "taken advantage" and kept the money, but she did the right thing. And that's the difference between where you and I live.

Second time to post response - please excuse if the first shows up!! Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and pictures! i really appreciate it. The center posts in each set are actually centered between the windows on each side (even though it doesn't appear as such in the picture!). By evenly spacing them the two posts flanking the front door will move more towards the window. Wish I could give you dimensions. The carpenter is out there now in the mud with everything torn up readying for the concrete pour. Anyway, I wanted to state that as it appeared I wasn't clear. It sounds like everyone thinks a larger opening at the front door will look OK? There will be railings between posts. Also I would opinions on the diameter of the posts. I am thinking 8". The carpenter thinks 6". They will be 8 feet tall so anything larger than 8" might appear too chunky. Thoughts??? Thanks again. Look forward to hearing back.

Azan, no offense to others expressing their opinions, this is where you really do need the service of a competent designer, who truly understands what constitutes good design which you will NOT get from the contractor who's giving you a quote that covers design, materials & labor, or friends, family or neighbors. Speaking of which, do you live in an HOA? If you do, get a copy of the design standards or architectural guidelines and find out what you have to do to get your proposed alteration through the review committee. You may well be stuck. You currently have a modern builder's silly notion of what constitutes a "colonial". I am so sorry to say, again no offense to others who think it's a beautiful colonial house, it isn't. And there are probably another 20 down the street from you, with minor variations, all designs that would have given colonial era master builders (where design and construction are combined) a convulsion. There are all kinds of things wrong with the facade composition, like 3 different window proportions and shapes, which no amount of landscaping will solve and you are absolutely right that the porch is a problem, but it's not about brick vs stone. Changing a consistent material on a house is the last thing you should do to "improve" the look. When I was in graduate school, a one-off course was offered on "facade composition" one summer. Finally, a professor teaching us aspiring architects how to design a facade, rather than all that nonsense about "form-making"! I stayed just to benefit from his wisdom. Guess what, there were 30 plus grad students taking this course, and the historic preservation expert told us, we will team up in pairs, analyze historic facades, and we'll talk about it. Really, that's the class? Yes indeed, it's called a graduate seminar. Imagine that happening in med or law school! (Hey, I may be the professor but I am not a practitioner, why don't we just get together and learn from one another?) He didn't teach us the principles and theories of facade composition, though here and there he offered some useful observations. Undergrad & grad arch'l school, not one professor taught us anything about facade composition. Not one. Imagine! So I went to the library, dug up old architectural magazines, from the early 1900s, and taught myself, by analyzing facade compositions I admire. You can do the same. Get a couple books on historic colonial architecture, or better yet on your next getaway, go visit historic places filled with colonial architecture, like Colonial Williamburg, Annapolis or Alexadria (if you live in VA). Not everyone can design well or cook well, but everyone can learn to appreciate good design or good cooking.

Landscape Design is not a garden forum?? Coulda fooled me!! If the porch floor is 30" or more above grade, railings are a code requirement - forget about aesthetics or feeling too enclosed. But it looks from the photos like you might just slide in under that. Regardless, it is still a bit of a safety hazard, so whatever you plant to surround the porch should come up at least to that level or even slightly higher. A psychological barrier if not a physical one :-)