Insofar as arts & crafts style meant honest materials/ design your heavy 6x6 newels/guardrails are fine. By honest materials, I mean shingles and heavy timbers that aren't ashamed about what they are. 20 years previous, Victorians embraced the idea of all forms of sham and pretense. The porch posts were more like table legs writ large. The popular furniture style du jour was expended into the porch, the cornice, and the dormers! If a material could be tortured into a convoluted shape by saw or blade, it was. Or they cast it in plaster and tacked it on. Was it supposed to be emulating ancient stonework? then paint wood it and embed the surface with sand! Instant faux-stone. Things would not always (if ever?) be what they appeared. A&C was a reaction against this, and timber and shingle and natural lines without artifice and pretension were embraced. Your little bungalow is a simple expression of an honest ideal. "Let things be what they are". They _did_ like to use oversize elements, especially on the porch. Think of the huge pyramidal rounded fieldstone piers, and knee-braces and timbered gable decorations. Brutalism is something else entirely. It's about raw unfinished (and intentionally roughened) concrete surfaces. Not 6x6 porch railings. I grew up in a 1938 house that was sort of a stone cape cod and adirondack lodge combo. It had a third-floor interior balcony/catwalk enclosed with 4x6 white pine rails and 6x6 newel posts. Woodsy, but not brutal. The stair treads were solid 6x10's. I should scan the construction photo album from that place some day... Casey

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.

RES - that may be true for codes in your area and general national codes, but there are at times local codes that says differently. Always good to check before spending a lot of money. I think putting the patio down has caused the issue with needing steps there and eating into the available patio space. Steps down from the patio would have been preferred with the design or the design taken the drop into account from the start for anybody reading this and are at a point in the project where they can fix it. At this point it will be awkward with the placement of the fireplace no matter what you do unless there is the possibility to move or not keep the fireplace. Another option not mentioned is to create a landing in front of the door that also includes that corner spot and then turn the stairs to go alongside the house instead of in front of the fireplace or make the stairs go in all directions from that landing. I think the last part is what I'd do. Then the corner space can be used to put some pots of plants in that corner and the stairs going in all directions will look a little less off and more intentional. Kind of like this deck has steps all around - https://cdn.homeadvisor.com/files/eid/19330000/19335529/1885810_ddetail.jpg?modifyDateTime=1430870981000

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 :-)