We also have porches on our house on both the north & south sides. The front porch faces south and is 8' deep, the back porch faces due north and is 10' deep along the kitchen wall and 16' deep along the family room wall. I was also worried about the natural light issue especially in the family room with such a deep porch and the north direction. When I solicited feedback from GW, most posters said the rooms would be gloomy. In the end, though, my worries (and the gloomy predictions) were unfounded. While I do not have direct sunlight streaming in, I have plenty of natural light that I can work and read by without help of ambient/overhead lighting even in winter. Really the only time we turn on the lights in there is at night. The room feels open & airy--keeping the wall & floor color on the light side & having lots of windows also helps. Our furniture is dark, but the floor is natural stained oak and the walls are a medium beige color (SW Simply Beige).

DS1's bedroom is on the front of the house on the south side with his bedroom window under the porch. During the winter, he complains of the sun waking him up too early as the sun is still low enough in the southern sky to shine in under the porch right through his window. Another 2' in porch depth might have helped that.

Since you say your family room is also on the south side think about what happens when sun shines directly into a room--there typically is a glare on the TV or it shines directly in someone's eyes and you have to pull the curtains or close the blinds. With the porch in place you won't have to worry about any of that. You should get plenty of natural light without the glare.

Your DH is right in thinking that an extra 2' would help with usability of the porch. My parents' front porch is 10' deep and they are easily able to use it for parties and such. With my 8' deep porch on the front of the house it would be more difficult as it's just not deep enough to accomodate a table, chairs, etc. (Well I guess it could accomodate them, but it would be very tough to get around the table to get to all the chairs to have a seat-LOL!)

The question then is: which is more important to you--streaming sunlight in a room vs. a roomier & more versatile porch for relaxing/entertaining? At our house the answer was the porch, hands down.

Hope this helps!

With either an 8' or 10' covered porch, your windows won't get much if any DIRECT sunlight. In either case, if you want to ensure that the great room won't be dark and dismal, skylights or solartubes on the porch would be a good idea.

While skylights CAN make it a bit warmer on the porch, the heat build up shouldn't be as problematic as having skylights in an enclosed room inside the house would be. Remember that your porch should have plenty of air circulation so heat won't build up the same way it would inside. Plus you can add vents to the porch roof to allow rising warm air to escape in the summertime.

The other thing you'll want to do with a deep porch is make sure the porch flooring and porch ceiling are light colors with high reflectivity values. This will allow light to "bounce around" on the porch more so you get more reflected light entering your great room.

mydreamhome and bevangel - thank you so much for your feedback! You have made me feel much better about our planned porch and the sunlight issue. I can move forward with the porch without the agony of indecision of the last 24 hours. Just when you think you are done with the planning stage, concerns like this pop up and make you think your dream is ruined :) It's great that we have this forum so we can think of ways to solve potential problems before the build!

Glad I came across this! We have covered porch on the front and back side of our house (north and south). I thought of the light issue during our planning stage, but having the covered area outside was more important. Also, the home we just sold was facing west, so we really didn't get any direct sunlight except for a very short time in the morning in the kitchen/dining and not until about 3pm in the livingroom. Between that time, there was plenty of natural light. I'm hoping the same will be true for the new house. Tkfinn97...I'm interested to see how it works out for you. We are about 2-3 hours south of the Canadian border (MN), so maybe our lighting conditions will be similar...our build SHOULD be done in about 6 weeks.

I really appreciated the advice from the posters above, and hope it works out for you nikkidan! I also called my sister yesterday to ask for her thoughts, and she mentioned that most of her south facing windows usually have the shades down during the day since the direct light was uncomfortable depending on where you are sitting. Our current house is facing west too, and since you mentioned it, I usually close the shades around 2 or 3 p.m. since the sun is streaming right into my eyes. I am feeling better and better about this :)

We have a wrap around porch...8 ft wide. I reside in Canada and so I understand about the winter light. Anyhow our porches were designed with clear lexon material sections built over the windows areas so that the light comes through. Just a thought!

I think it depends on how high the porch ceilings are, whether you have trees to reduce the amount you have to work with to begin with, how big your windows are under the porch, and how much natural light you are hoping to have in your home. If you have high porch ceilings and many really big windows and your property is naturally pretty sunny, then I don't think it's a problem. But, if your porch height is only 8 ft. and your windows are smaller and higher up (so closer to the roofline) and your property is pretty shady, then yes, I think a deep porch would cause a problem in getting natural light into your home.

nikkidan, what part of MN are you in? We are in Duluth and hope to be building soon after we sell our house.

Great points gobruno, probably the most important variables. For others in the design stage thinking of porches facing South, consider elimanating covered porches on the South altogether. Passive Solar Design can provide 40-90% of your heat needs for free with little concern for summer overheating.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cost Effective Passive Solar Design

Does anyone have a picture of their porch skylights to share? I have seen a few, but would love to see more. I live in Florida where the majority of homes are built with roof trusses - that seems to complicate things in this matter.

Our S-SE facing porch is 10'wide by 60' long with some wrapping the east and west sides. We love it! It's big enough for parties, tables, chairs etc. We have large windows on the south side, living room and kitchen, letting in plenty of natural light. As previous posters said, keep your wall colors light. You will never regret a porch, and in our area, the porch actually reduces cooling costs significantly. It blocks that hot summer sun. In the evenings in the summer the sun is in the NW, so our SE porch is always shady and much cooler than if we had a deck on the back of the house.
Good luck, enjoy that porch!

frozenelves8...we are about 4 hours west of Duluth.

When working with the windows on a covered porch connecting to the living room, what window coverings would work best to #1. let in light and #2. keep the cold wind out in the winter. No need for privacy as we are in the mountains of NC.

Random Arts, if you start a new thread you will get answers specific to your question. Many don't read the older threads and this one is from 2012.

An 8' deep porch is pretty useless unless you're having a row of rocking chairs. Good to go to 10' or 12'. Do some furniture 'arranging' on your drawings -- see how people can circulate around a table w/chairs pulled out.

Well...actually it's very simple.

There are published sun angle charts for every latitude in North America which show the sun angles for every time of day, and every month of the year.

With these in hand, one can easily identify and compute the "cutoff angles" of the sun at every hour of the day, for every month of the year. Knowing the various cutoff angles for summer and winter solstice, one can easily compute the necessary dimensions of roof overhangs and arbor/trellis designs to allow winter sun in the house and prevent summer sun from entering the interiors.

I will suggest that covered porches of 8'-10' and more will prevent the sun from ever entering the interior of a house at any time of the year, anywhere in North America.

What's really needed are architectural designs which support a passive energy and natural light strategy, while also providing a covered (and/or screened) porch at some appropriate location which does not block natural light in the major public spaces of the house.

What happens in the vast majority of situations is that "canned" or "home grown" designs simply tack on deep porches to the major public spaces and thus make impossible any sort of passive solar and natural light strategies.

The alternative is to design a custom home using experience and creativity. Folks who know how to do this exist and are available.

We built a screened porch on the back of our house in St Louis. It had a shed roof and it faced north. We were very concerned about it making the DR and kitchen very dark, so we added 3 huge skylights to the porch. They worked very, very well - no dark interiors.

Seems to me skylights on a screened porch would defeat the purpose of it, for me anyway. I wanted a shaded porch to sit in.. If you're going to fill the roof with skylights, why not just build a deck?

I am planning to have covered patio 12 ft deep adjacent to

living room which is 2 story Living room with large windows .i have two option either to put the roof above higher window or at lower window .So I am just concerned if putting roof over lower window will make my living room darker or putting it above higher window will make both window darker?

This is our 10.5 foot wide porch and sliders to kitchen/dining. It’s almost 9am and no lights on. We love it.

Also bonus pic of dog included 😂

Thanks for this pic! We’re building a deep covered porch. Which direction is your porch facing? Also, what type of floors do you have? They’re beautiful!

Our backyard is south east to morning light for sure. But it’s bright all the time on our main floor.

Floors are called Pravada. I think this one.

https://pravadafloors.com/collections/artistique/products/chanel

Ours will be facing north and is 16 feet deep. It feels dark but we’re early into the build so we’ll see. Yours looks so lovely and bright! Thank you for the link!

I too am worried a little about sun in the great room but I have windows on all sides. My porch is 8ft deep in the corner and faces SE. Thoughts please and thank you.

Interior ceiling height, porch facing wall and glass size/area (relative to total wall area), other walls exterior facing glass windows/walls, interior colors, porch direction, depth, width and ceiling height, porch floor material and color are a few criteria that all play a strong part in asthetics, interior light levels and feelings of grandeur. One can't single out one aspect of a design and expect it work without taking everything else into account. The same goes for every other living space in the home, how much care and attention to detail is put into it's design, will reflect the joy and satifaction you get out of it. The same design principles apply to almost every human made objects around us.

I feel I need to clarify your porch is 10.5 feet deep. It’s 24 feet across!

It’s 10.5 ‘ to edge of the garage but 8’ in the porch section in front of living room.

Sorry should have said OUR not your.