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When we built our home 7 years ago, we designed a front porch that just seems a bit blah, but I'm at a loss for ideas. Any suggestions on who I could turn to for help?

Rocky said:

When we built our home 7 years ago, we designed a front porch that just seems a bit blah, but I'm at a loss for ideas. Any suggestions on who I could turn to for help?

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Uhhh.....Martha Stewart?

How about Bob Veilla?

Rocky said:

When we built our home 7 years ago, we designed a front porch that just seems a bit blah, but I'm at a loss for ideas. Any suggestions on who I could turn to for help?

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Pretty hard to give you ideas when you don't give us an idea of how it looks. What kind of house, ranch, two story, whatever? Post a pic of it. For some reason I can never think of a porch on a house other than a big, rambling two story...

I have read that decks on the back of a house are what gradually killed the front porch idea of design for new houses...

JDGreen is right - it's hard to know what can be changed without a description or picture. Some porches stick out from a house, and others are built right in. The stick-out kind is much easier to tear down and redesign.

As for who to turn to, you may start by driving around looking at other people's porches. Take pictures of ones you like. You could also clip pictures from magazines. If that doesn't help, or if it turns out to be a bigger project than you anticipated, go to a local contractor or home builder for advice and/or professional help with the project.

I have to agree with my fellow forum members. We cannot help you unless you give us more details. You said you designed it but it's blah. Explain!

You could find books and magazines with pictures of homes that resemble yours and get some ideas there. A custom home designer would be a good source of ideas too. Also maybe someone who does remodeling would have some good suggestions. Good luck!

What do you want to do to it, what is it lacking? What do you want it to accomplish? It is lacking functionality, space, do you want it enclosed into a sun room?

Rocky said:

When we built our home 7 years ago, we designed a front porch that just seems a bit blah, but I'm at a loss for ideas. Any suggestions on who I could turn to for help?

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COME ON, COME ON...we are bursting with all kinds of helpful suggestions but cannot give them until you provide more detail...

Maybe you can help me...five years ago I built a bi-level 24X12 deck with two stairways, a hot tub, a grill bump out, and installed two sliding glass doors that enable access to the deck from inside the house. It looks so blah...can YOU give me ideas for what to do to solve the problem? :biggrin:

I do not get what "blah" means. Is that an American word for something? Thank you for helping me catch the language better. I am learning a lot here.

minkyung said:

I do not get what "blah" means. Is that an American word for something? Thank you for helping me catch the language better. I am learning a lot here.

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Glad you are learning a lot, me too !! Blah refers to dull, ordinary, mundane, lifeless. The man wants us to give him ideas on how to jazz up, give his porch pizzaz, OOPS...more inane words, sorry.

He wants his porch to be more attractive, inviting, accent his house more, be better coordinated than the plain appearance it now has. He can use colors, plantings, add items to make it look better than BLAH. Hope this helps. :smile:

JD - poor you with your boring old bi-level hot tub & grill enhanced party deck - Let me with my fancy shmancy rectangle-with-a-chimney-pipe-sticking-through-it-deck be the one to give you advice. :tongue:

How about plants, awnings, furniture and a coat of paint. Between the four of those you can set just about any mood you are looking for.

Me, I just go for functional:

AndyMan said:

JD - poor you with your boring old bi-level hot tub & grill enhanced party deck - Let me with my fancy shmancy rectangle-with-a-chimney-pipe-sticking-through-it-deck be the one to give you advice. :tongue:

How about plants, awnings, furniture and a coat of paint. Between the four of those you can set just about any mood you are looking for.

Me, I just go for functional:

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My dad loved to say---"you can go fancy, or you can go cheap" and he always chose the latter...the last new car he owned was a dealer closeout plain jane 4 door painted a color my brother and I called "goat-vomit green" when the old man wasn't around to hear us...:laughing:

Gotta post of pic of my deck, too cold for plants, awning would collapse from weight of the snow, furniture is stored for the winter, and the paint is covered under a layer of icy snow, so you cannot see the new stain I applied last fall.

Your deck..well, my dad would have been proud of you, thats worth a lot in my book...:thumbsup:

This is an amusing thread. Rocky has never clarified what he wants. We just know he finds his porch "blah" and wants ideas to change it. Classic A to B question. We don't know where "A" is nor where "B" is. But we're very sure we're somewhere in the middle. A military pilot got lost in the middle of Sulu Sea this way

adan said:

This is an amusing thread. Rocky has never clarified what he wants. We just know he finds his porch "blah" and wants ideas to change it. Classic A to B question. We don't know where "A" is nor where "B" is. But we're very sure we're somewhere in the middle. A military pilot got lost in the middle of Sulu Sea this way

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Amusing, huh? Let's all post a picture of our decks and porches and maybe poor Rocky can finally decide what he wants. Gonna rush out and take pics of mine BRB....:laughing:

JDgreen said:

My dad loved to say---"you can go fancy, or you can go cheap" and he always chose the latter...the last new car he owned was a dealer closeout plain jane 4 door painted a color my brother and I called "goat-vomit green" when the old man wasn't around to hear us...:laughing:

Gotta post of pic of my deck, too cold for plants, awning would collapse from weight of the snow, furniture is stored for the winter, and the paint is covered under a layer of icy snow, so you cannot see the new stain I applied last fall.

Your deck..well, my dad would have been proud of you, thats worth a lot in my book...:thumbsup:

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Here is my horribly "blah" party deck...winter version.

JDgreen said:

My dad loved to say---"you can go fancy, or you can go cheap" and he always chose the latter...the last new car he owned was a dealer closeout plain jane 4 door painted a color my brother and I called "goat-vomit green" when the old man wasn't around to hear us...:laughing:

Gotta post of pic of my deck, too cold for plants, awning would collapse from weight of the snow, furniture is stored for the winter, and the paint is covered under a layer of icy snow, so you cannot see the new stain I applied last fall.

Your deck..well, my dad would have been proud of you, thats worth a lot in my book...:thumbsup:

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Deck for smaller parties...winter version

We need to revamp our deck in the spring as well and maybe put a roof on it so we have some protection from the elements, that's how were leaning now.

minkyung said:

I do not get what "blah" means. Is that an American word for something? Thank you for helping me catch the language better. I am learning a lot here.

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Blah means bland, boring, unattractive, without color. I guess it is American slang. It's fascinating how words like that feel so common to one but are completely foreign to others.

When we first moved into our present home in the early 80s, the porch was a poured 5x6. We used it too much, sitting on it talking with the neighbors and simply watching traffic or whatever, to leave it as is. We had it ripped out and widened and lengthened to 6x14. NOW we had a front porch and it was great for a few years until my wife decided she wasn't a sun-worshipper anymore. Then we had a custom-built wooden awning installed and it's been that way ever since. Maybe 20 years now. We added a large deck on the back of the house with a built-in hot tub, and that's been maybe 12-15 years. Now, though, we are moving north to a larger house and I've had to start all over again. Porches start probably next year.:frown:

Perhaps the front porch is 'blah' enough for him to post the pic here. Come on, if you have suggestions or like your front porch, why not give ideas on how you designed, unless you really need to see his.

People, people, people! Can you ever forgive me? Thanks for all the responses!---haven't logged on lately---I expected to find maybe 2 responses! Unfortunately, I don't have the means to post a photo. I wasn't looking for specific porch ideas, just thoughts on a good subject matter expert to consult. (I love the Martha Stewart response!) It's "blah" in that it seems too small relative to the house, and so "curb appeal" is not there. I like the idea of working with a custom home designer, and that's probably what I'll do.

Rocky said:

People, people, people! Can you ever forgive me? Thanks for all the responses!---haven't logged on lately---I expected to find maybe 2 responses! Unfortunately, I don't have the means to post a photo. I wasn't looking for specific porch ideas, just thoughts on a good subject matter expert to consult. (I love the Martha Stewart response!) It's "blah" in that it seems too small relative to the house, and so "curb appeal" is not there. I like the idea of working with a custom home designer, and that's probably what I'll do.

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Speaking for the group, we collectively forgive you. Congratulations on starting a new thread that generated a lot of interest...very few of the ones I start ever make it to the third page...:thumbsup:

The porch that was originally on our house was just a 4' wide (deep?) thing to keep us from plummeting to the earth when we stepped out the back door. We suffered through that for many years before replacing it with the larger, more functional one we have now, complete with staircase leading to the ground.

The boys, being boys, voted for a slide, but we won and got our staircase.

AndyMan said:

The porch that was originally on our house was just a 4' wide (deep?) thing to keep us from plummeting to the earth when we stepped out the back door. We suffered through that for many years before replacing it with the larger, more functional one we have now, complete with staircase leading to the ground.

The boys, being boys, voted for a slide, but we won and got our staircase.

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Good luck in getting inspector approval, with a slide substituting for steps...be easy to get down, but the getting up would be a tad more difficult. The pic I posted of my bi level, hot tubbed deck, was originally going to be a simple four foot wide staircase with railings, and a 3 foot wide hinged door. I calculated $500 for materials...well, when it was done, the sliding doors alone were over $2300 (Andersons) and the deck itself, lumber, concrete, railings, etc. was another $6000 for materials, not including the hot tub and grill...but boy, it will host one heckuva deck party. :thumbsup: