Porch Design Tips

It’s been about a month since I posted last.  In my defense, I was struggling with how to write the promised post that focused scathing reviews of the horrible things people do when putting a front porch** on their house. 

Wait, that’s a lie.  Okay, honesty time… I’ve been drafted into a secretive government group that monitors cultural trends and reports back to our superiors so they can enact more legislation that takes the fun out of life. 

Wait, still a lie… I was far too busy at my boring Architecture job. 

Nope, not quite there yet… it was hot out and that makes me lazy and cranky.

There we go.  And it really makes me wonder how we’d ever move to the beautiful south where the front porch is a staple of humid weather living.  I mean, I’d never use mine because I’d be sequestered and naked in an ice filled bathtub in a womb-like air conditioned environment.  Just to protect the world from my crankiness induced fury.

But for most people, the porch is a necessity in the hot summer.  But friends, necessity should never trump taste.  If you can’t figure out how to make a porch on your house which is architecturally pleasing, you shouldn’t be allowed to have one.

That’s where I come in.  As a self declared arbiter of taste and style, I would be happy to give a no holds barred, crotchety review of your existing porch or porch plans.  Just upload a pic in the comments or send me a link and I’ll rip you a new one.

Doesn’t sound appealing?  Okay, here’s a review of some horrible things you should NOT do, courtesy of the nameless residents of Beaufort, SC and a few others.  To be fair, there were far more beautiful examples of what you should do, and we’ll touch on those at the bottom.

Not Proportional to the House

Your porch should be proportional to the house, not the front door.  If its only serving the purpose of keeping people dry whilst they ring the bell, you’ve wasted an opportunity.  Especially if your house is as ugly as this one in which we stayed.

Not Structurally Proportional

Your porch should LOOK structurally proportional.  This pink monstrosity appears to be supported by toothpick posts which I almost sawed off in the middle of the night just to teach them a lesson.  Additionally, there’s no sense of hierarchy.  Either the two outermost posts or the two posts that frame the entry should have been larger.  Of course, that would have led to some weird balance and symmetry issues on this famous inn, but I can’t comment on all the things wrong here.  This deserves a full razing of the building anyways.

Column Style not conducive to residential Style

The scale and proportion and order of your columns especially speak to the importance of your building.  This is the JohnMark Verdier house and museum.  And it seems to imply that Jesus lives here.  I can accept that Verdier was some kind of local historic figure, so I’ll give him a pass.

On a related note, unless you're the President of the United States, you never have the right to have double height columns on your ordinary abode.  (Double height columns being the ones that support a two story porch with no intermediate balcony.

NEVER.

Never Double Height Columns

There's no compromising on this one folks.  If your house has double height columns like the one above  in our neighborhood in Philadelphia, stop reading.  Go outside.  Saw, chew, or burn them off now.  This is a massive monstrous FAIL.

Unnecessary Columns

Admittedly, sometimes people are poor.  We feel bad for them and but for the grace of God would be in the same boat.  But while I can support many social reform initiatives and even some softening of judgmentalism based on cultural factors, it doesn’t take more money to have good taste.  In this case, less would have been more.  Take out those center two most columns, moron.  They don’t match, they serve no structural purpose, and they’re proportionally stupid in their placement.

Unnecessary Everything...

But more commonly, it’s too much money that goes with bad taste.  A porch is still a porch and if you dump so much detailing into the front of your house as to be ostentatious or gaudy, you deserve to be taxed incessantly to teach you a lesson about not being a moron.  This example from Savannah, is just fugly .  And oddly enough, it is  sexy, but in a hooker-y kind of way.

But lest you think I’m all diatribe and no love, here’s a few examples of some graceful, practical, and understated porches to which you can aspire when planning your next project.

**Lastly, it should be noted to the extremely sensitive, that yes, I am a white man.  But once again, I have discovered by going to urban dictionary that I was more ignorant of the extent of racism/classism attached to the idea of a porch than one might expect.  I grew up in a surprisingly diverse farm town and I guess no one ever sat me down and taught me all the racist jokes or ways to identify people I’m supposed to hate.  So, if you’re about to spout off in the comments, do yourself a favor, and consider whether being someone who bitches about people’s dumb choices regardless of their race or economic status isn’t the goal we should all aspire to anyways.