Hey! We have a covered terrace off of our family room. It faces east. I was petrified of the room being dark, so our builder suggested skylights even though he thought it would be fine without them. We had them installed, and I do think they make the porch more "sunshiny." :) However, I think several other factors contribute to our kitchen, breakfast room, great room being light-filled much moreso than the skylights. First, even though our ceiling in the kitchen/great room is a standard 10' ceiling (no vault) the foyer which leads into the family is 2 story. It has a large window at the top, and our double front doors are 3/4 glass. Sunlight pours into the great room in the afternoon from them. Also, the study and formal dining room have cased openings that open into the back of the house. Finally, we have large windows in the breakfast room, kitchen, and my little office. These are south facing windows (and west, my office has windows on 2 walls.) plus, 3 glass doors to terrace. I think, looking at your plan, you'd be ok. Personally, I'd move that fireplace out of that corner and onto that left wall, then put in another set of doors or windows, but that is just a balance thing for me, probably not necessary for light. If you do get skylights, we haven't had any problem with them. The window cleaning company we use just charges them as another window. We could also easily access them ourselves from upstairs windows onto the porch roof. They really weren't that expensive, maybe $600 each? (or total, I can't remember, we have 2.) here are some pics: Back of house, showing terrace and roof Here is one skylight. Oh, and we painted the tongue and groove ceiling blue, which helps, too.

Thanks for the input, Dedtired (which I am right now -- dead tired, LOL!), Les and Lynne_melb! Yes, the porch/deck will come off of the sliders where the tiny deck is now. As it stands now, it would have a gabled roof and the shed roof would just meld into it. Dedtired, thanks for the nice compliments! This is our dream house, and we really do love it. The views are really nice. I hadn't thought of skylights -- thank you! That might be something we will incorporate if we go the porch route since I am concerned about the potential lack of light in the family room (the three windows). The windows from the sunroom (in the turret) also bleed into that area, too, so that will help some, but still... Les, I hadn't even considered that kind of shape. That might look really nice. I'm a little concerned that it might up the price quite a bit, though, and we're on a pretty tight budget (which might be part of why I'm thinking of deck only). I can't really envision how the shed roof would tie in. I'll have to think about that. Lynne, yes, I would like to have a sheltered area from bugs, and we really did love our old screened porch. I think I'm hesitating because of the lack of light in the family room if we build the porch, and the cost would be so much less if we just went with a bi-level deck. Plus, I just would love to see what it would look like. Maybe if I saw it, I could fall in love with the idea again! I guess another thing that worries me is that I love the view from the family room & breakfast nook windows (lots of trees back by the creek), and I'm concerned that we'll be diminishing it by the porch obstructing part of the view (it will need to stick out about 3' more than the nook in order to be in proportion -- not long & narrow). Maybe once it's there, it won't be as bad as I'm afraid it might be. Thanks for helping me work through this!

Did he use a moisture barrier under his concrete when he poured it? That might be the key here to a successful concrete floor for your application.

Hello, Beautiful room! We are looking to do the same thing to our screened in porch. I thought I wanted glass windows, and then I saw your post on another board. I started looking into the Sunspace windows. They look gorgeous, but I was wondering how they are holding up. We also live on the water(bay) and we are worried about the sand/wind making them cloudy. Do they have good clarity? Did you get any color to them for sun protection, or did you go with clear? Thank you!