Enhancing Your Outdoor Living with a Screen Porch
A screened porch creates an outdoor room for dining, relaxing and gathering, with a roof for shade and screens that help keep insects out. It remains an outdoor space: temperature, pollen and wind-driven rain still affect comfort. Planning its size, orientation and connection to your home helps make it useful for the way you live.
Benefits of having a Screen Porch
1. Space for the way you gather
Plan room for a dining table, comfortable seating and clear paths between doors, steps and the yard.
2. Shade and insect screening
A roof and screened walls make outdoor time more comfortable. Roof overhangs, screen openings and the direction of prevailing weather deserve attention during design.
3. A connection to your deck or patio
A screened porch can work alongside an open grilling deck, pool patio or garden. Door locations and floor levels influence how easily you move between these spaces.
4. Details that fit the house
Rooflines, ceiling finishes, railings and exterior materials should work together with the existing home. Choose the project for the space you want to use; resale value and energy savings are not guaranteed.
Choosing the right Screen Porch builder
Explore our custom screened porch projects in Charlotte, including completed porches and construction galleries.
A screened porch on an existing deck
If you have a deck now, start with two questions. Where would you put the table and chairs, and how would someone get from the house to the yard while those seats are occupied? Then look at what changes when you put a roof over that space. At the first visit we look at the deck, its supports and the proposed roof connection before discussing what can stay.
In our elevated porch and open deck project, the original deck had a single stairway to the lawn. The photographs show the new platform, the posts beneath the porch and the gable framing. In the finished space, the screened seating area opens onto a deck that remains open to the sky.
What can I do with the space beneath an elevated screened porch?
If the yard is low enough below the porch, you can use that space for a shaded terrace or a place to sit near the garden. Start at the downstairs door and walk the route you want to take to the yard. Where would chairs go? Where should the upstairs steps land? The answers help determine how to arrange the posts and openings so people can move around the furniture.
At a Lake Wylie home, we built the screened room at the level of the upper doors and left three arched openings facing the yard below. The stairs run along the side. Someone coming out the lower doors can walk straight onto the terrace without crossing the stairway. If you want the lower seating area to stay dry in rain, bring that up at the design stage so water drainage can be planned with the porch floor.
How can I keep my wooded view when I screen in a porch?
Look at the view from chair height as well as from the doorway. In this vaulted screened porch near Huntersville, the screening continues above the horizontal beam into the gable. From the seating area you can see the branches overhead. An open deck and landing to the side give the family a route down to the garden.
Connecting a screened porch to a patio
On a South Charlotte split-level, we built a vaulted screened porch beside a spa deck. Broad steps lead down to the yard, and a sliding door connects the house to the stone patio. When you plan a porch at a different height from your yard, think through where those steps and doors will land before settling on the size of the room.
Designers Choice designs and builds custom screened porches in Charlotte and surrounding areas. We consider the layout, roof connection, ceiling, materials, lighting and access to the yard as one project. Our completed-project and construction galleries show how these details come together.
Contact Us to discuss your location, ideas, working investment range and timing.