You might try hosing them down in the morning. Painting might make them look cleaner, but when it comes to sitting on them they still have to be cleaned. I finally figured out fixing my deck up nicely was just adding another room which has to be cleaned. The only furniture I have on my deck now is one lounge with removable cushions. I keep the cushions just inside the patio door or in the deck box. When I hose down the deck I hose down the lounge frame. This post was edited by EmmaR on Sun, Mar 3, 13 at 9:05

Poly chips when damaged. It is almost impossible to spot repair those chipped areas, meaning the entire area/piece has to be refinished. And, of course, the chipped areas look funky and no longer protect the wood. Use paint or varnish(not poly varnish). And be aware, the water will degrade the bottoms of the rockers/legs. Applying finish to those areas will help protect, but the rockers will wear off the finish in use.

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.

Privacy wall is very, very nice. 4 X 6 rugs - is that about the size of space on each side of middle pillar / post? If yes, then no, I don’t think it would be odd but will be very symetrical. A good thing for me! Question -do you need shade to sit out on porch? I’m thinking about roll up kind of shades mounted on the porch side of the fascia trim.. Invisible from the street. There are easy ways to hold or tie down the shades if breezes are a problem.. We have a rollup shade on our west facing porch. Makes our porch so much more usable. ETA Another thought - agree that table is too large. I’m thinking two small tables, one between each set of chairs…Goes well with having two rugs.