Hi all. Love these boards. Always so helpful. My question is...we are doing an addition where we will put on a 6 foot deep front porch along the front of our house. We had planned on putting a recessed light right over the front door with 2 others spaced 6 or so feet apart continuing down in front of our dining room windows. We are just wondering if we should also put a fixture on either side of the door or just one on the one side of the door. Do you think it would look okay with just the recessed lights? We will have a recessed light over each of the garage doors and fixtures on either side of the garage (not on the front by the recessed lights because of decorative brackets) Appreciate any thoughts.

vwhippie, the corbels would make it too gingerbready IF you use gingerbready corbels. The door with its woodwork gives what is a very simple exterior the heft and interest it needs, esp. with those beautiful tall windows on the first floor. Adding somewhat simple, "farm-housey" corbels would beautifully carry the whole porch with what the door does and balance it out. As for the old house thing, never say never until the pro says it can't be done. As I said, there has to be an electrical box in that wall for the light you've got. An electrician can tell you if a pendant light can be wired to that box. If not, it can't. But the age of the house has nothing to do with this particular subject. As I said, my house is 1880. I just added an outdoor lamp because when I bought the house, there was a three-bay window in this wall that had rotted out, including the wall, and it made sense to put glass sliding doors in there, so I did. But it's needed an exterior lamp. I finally had an onion lamp installed a few weeks ago. It was a piece of cake. He just drilled a hole, and wired the lamp to the box that is in the wall. FYI: I was with a couple of kids, a 16 year old girl and 12 year old boy, and I showed them the pics, didn't say one word about who was proposing what. Showed them the pics, and then asked them which new light situation they thought was best. The girl I asked first (boy wasn't even around) and she said the pendant light. The boy actually said, "I"d put a light in the middle" as soon as I showed him just the photo of your front door and hadn't even shown him any of the mockups or even said anything about anything. So he also saw the pendant light right away. Genius kid! Lol.

Regardless of lighting, no sidelights. Yeah, I know the plan shows them, but that's a modification we'll be making. I checked on the porch roof: 9' high. Tall enough to manage the door and a transom. Bugs are no problem if you use a yellow light bulb. Well, a red light does the trick too, but red shines an odd color, while a yellow looks fine. Bugs are also less of a problem if you mount your light fixture 18" or so away from the door -- if you put the light fixture right next to the door, bugs come in the house. I hadn't considered the potential problem of a wall-mounted light fixture BEHIND the door /the door hitting it as it's opened ... but, yeah, I don't need a broken glass door ... that's the type of detail I like to learn from this board, and I think it makes up my mind about one vs. two. I also hadn't considered anyone banging his or her head on the light fixture. Since I'm not quite 5' tall, my own head is completely bang-free. Regardless, light fixtures should be just above eye level, so a person would have to be standing awfully close to the wall /in an awkward position to run into it. I am leaning towards a single smaller lantern now. I like the picture above of the narrow lanterns, but I also think that narrow look only works if they're in pairs. I'm going to look at some pictures and see if I can prove or disprove this theory. I think the article I read -- which recommended lanterns 1/2-1/3 the door height was aimmed at a different style house ... or was just off-base. My current house light fixtures (wall mounted) are not that big, and I don't find them too small ... but, you know, the article said that most people have undersized lighting, and it made me wonder if I'm out of the loop on this topic. Thanks again, all.

absolutely yes.