Thanks Perky for the kind words! I can't wait to see your photos. It amazes me how many different styles of screened porches we have seen just on this forum. I love the brick pavers, too. I don't know if I could have done those on this porch..since it's a full story up...I don't think so. But if I were screening in on a lower level or ground level...I would love to use the brick pavers. The look of brick is so warm and cozy to me and you can water your plants without having to worry about the water splashing on the floor. I really like the stamped concrete pictures I've seen here, too. With this porch we just had built, I am going for an old fashioned looking screened porch...with the white wicker. The forum may not still be going on come Spring...but if it is...or a similar forum...I'll post some photos once I get the porch furnished, now that I know how. I bought an old china cabinet/side board I'm going to paint a soft green or a periwinkle blue...or some pretty whimsical color...it will be on the porch to store things in...like dishes/china for dining. I've been looking for an old drop leaf table I can paint to put on the porch. It will stay closed down until I want to have a candlelight dinner party out on the porch. Hard to imagine that happening when my it's 23 degrees outside and snow on the deck. I have faith though...spring/summer will come again! :-)

I love my composite steps because they are not slippery in the winter like wood. But there are necessarily gaps in the composite between the boards so mosquitos and other insects can get in if its used on a porch. So I don't understand the logic of using this for screened porch floors. My dh can attest to the fact that mosquitos go under porches from when he had to do some work under the porch last summer. Dh put some drainage holes/tubes in our existing upstairs screen porch. He can actually close them off with little pieces of chopstick. Helps when we do spring clean up (with mop like indoors.) He has a plan for downstairs too, but not sure exactly what it is. It seems like you could put some thing in for drainage that could be closed up most the time (a hatch comes to mind), Kathy

I'm finishing up my 150 sq ft T&G ipe porch floor right now. A few points: - I did some research on flooring materials and would recommend against fir based on what I've read. Seems the fir porch floors of yesteryear held up well as they were milled from old growth fir. The fir available today is almost entirely young growth and just doesn't last. I read many complaints about floors that rotted badly within just a few years. You might want to talk to your contractor about this, maybe he has a source for better quality wood. But I ruled out fir right away after reading about it. - I'm not surprised at the amount of additional cost for ipe, especially considering the extra labor involved. The labor for installing a fir floor using a pneumatic nailer just doesn't compare to ipe, where you have to predrill, countersink, and drive a stainless steel screw for every floor board at every joist. A real pain in the rear. I didn't look at mahogany or tile, but so far I am very happy with my ipe floor. Steve

I re-read your question; you have heated/insulated rooms below a porch. Therefore, the wooden decking has no air movement underneath it, so it can never fully dry after rains. Any rain is able to penetrate through the many seams in the flooring and get the insulation and framing wet, and they can't dry out either. You need to understand the construction details that are necessary for this situation. It consists of building a seamless flat roof, that is impermeable and drains water away from the house, then building a walking deck on top of it. I have done three projects like this. The first one. we used a torch-down adhesive roll roofing, then 2x4 floating sleepers and a 3/4" traditional wood flooring. Second one, a subcontractor put down a EPDM rubber roof (we had to tear off everything because the old rubber roof failed and ruined the decking and a lot of the framing) then we built modular, removable hardwood duck boards that fit into the space and were removable for cleaning underneath. Third one, the metal roofer came in and built a flat copper roof, and we did a normal porch floor on sleepers as in #1, but this time in mahogany (more stable and rot proof) , painted. I just wanted to point out that there are more issues in play than you may realize, and your path forward is not simply choosing the most maintenance-free finishes. Casey