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| Hello all...
I was curious how large a screened-in porch should be? Our plans call for a 12' x 12' screened in porch attached to a 17' x 12' patio. Our home is being built high on a river bluff and the porch/patio will be used frequently. I was hoping someone may have a screened-in porch with similar dimensions and wouldn't mind posting some pictures of how they have it arranged. I am a visual person and seeing something would really help me out. All feedback is greatly appreciated. Please post a couple pictures if you can. Thank you in advance for your time/trouble. Saftgeek... |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by lavender_lass (My Page) on Sun, Oct 23, 11 at 0:25
| Saftgeek- Can you make the porch any bigger? Here's one of my favorite screened porches...and it's 18' x 14' with a couple of small decks. I hope it gives you some good ideas :) |
Here is a link that might be useful: Link to Between Naps on the Porch
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- Posted by athensmomof3 (My Page) on Sun, Oct 23, 11 at 0:39
| Ours is 16' wide x 18' long and I wouldn't want it any smaller. We do have a fireplace though that takes up 3 feet or so of the length, which may make it feel a little shorter. 12' x 12' is small . . . We wanted to put a table out there for meals and a wicker sofa and a couple of chairs and ours may not be big enough for that. I would think you could fit a sofa and a couple of chairs in a 12' x 12' porch, or a table, but not both. . . |
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- Posted by david_cary (My Page) on Sun, Oct 23, 11 at 6:01
| It all depends what you want. I'll try to remember to post a pic later but we have a 12x12. There is a fireplace but that is recessed in a sense so it doesn't take up an inch of floorspace. We have a loveseat, coffee table, and 2 chairs. You can walk around all the furniture. We just moved them closer to all touch a rug (6x9 probably) and it feels cozier. Then it starts looking like we didn't need 12x12 - like maybe 10x11 would have been enough for our needs. We eat out on the "open air" deck. We drink coffee or wine on the porch. In our world (and I totally realize everyone has different worlds), if you are leaving the kitchen to eat then you want to go all the way outside - ie "open air". My point is that we don't eat on the screened in porch but it isn't because of its size. I actually think this is a big point. Do you want to have eating both porch and patio? That might be overkill. 12x12 maybe small if you want dining for a group. But where is your outdoor dining? If it is on the patio, then probably 12x12 is fine. Sometimes I think a longer dimension makes more sense - ie more rectangle than square. |
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| Currently, we have an 11x14. We are able to fit a couch 2 chairs, coffee table and 2 end tables. We use ours all the time, and do find it is tight when entertaining bc we all end up outside. We also have an 11x15 patio right off of it. We don't use that as much as we typically eat on the screened porch instead. In our new build we are doing a a 24x14 screened porch - putting a fireplace out there as well as table/chairs for eating. There will also be an 18x14 patio off of it. But, we are also on 5 acres and plan on entertaining a lot. So for us, we wanted to have a huge outdoor space. |
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| We have a covered patio that's approx 20 x 20 plus there's an 8 x 9 cooking area bumpout. It's not screened in, but the pictures might still give you an idea of how much space you may want. We live outside for 6 months out of the year and use the entire space. Is your 12 x 17 space covered? Is so then it might be okay. But in a 12 x 12 room you can fit either a dining table or seating, not both.
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| Our plans called for a 12 X 12 screened in porch and we added an additional 2 feet. I wish we could have made it even larger but we had some design constraints. Like you we also plan to have patio off of the porch but because we are on a wooded lot everyone prefers our porch to being outside. We have a dining table and a two seat glider on ours . There is enough room to walk around furniture but I don't have room for much else. PPS7, is right that a screen porch that size can serve as an outside dining area or sitting area but not both. We opted to use the screened porch primarily for dining to keep the bugs at bay. |
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| A dining area alone needs to be about 12 X 12, so if you want more furniture, you'll need more space! You might make to-scale cut-outs of what you want to put on the porch to determine how much space you need. A 'square' can be more difficult to furnish than a rectangle. How will you access the porch? Will doors swing out onto it or swing into the house? These will eat space *somewhere*, in or out. In our climate there are few days or evenings when we'd be able to sit outside in an unscreened area -- mosquitos! Our porch has a peaked roof with two skylights in the eastern roof angle. This helps keep the adjacent interior rooms bright. |
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- Posted by athensmomof3 (My Page) on Sun, Oct 23, 11 at 18:32
| pps7 - so fun to see your finished area. Is that a walk out basement or your main level? We have the same sort of arches in our walk out basement patio . . . No idea what we will do with it - likely nothing right away other than bricking the floor as it is something we weren't planning on really finishing! Fun to see the possibilities though :) |
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| Thank you all so much for your input. I've been tweaking and re-thinking things... I have figured out a way to increase the size of the porch to 16' x 12' and the outside patio would be 14' x 12'. I know I wouldn't have even considered making changes without your input. Keep your fingers crossed for a home sale early next spring with a new build shortly to follow! Thanks again, |
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