First impressions

When we first moved into our old house we had no walkway to the front porch and door and the front stoop was a concrete and brick half round with 3 steps.  They were rather steep and the top step in particular was very small.  It also wasn't in keeping with the style of the house in my opinion.  Some people loved it and felt it added some grandeur to the house.  Mind you, this was a 1350 square foot, 1930's era bungalow, it was not ever meant to be grand!

As you looked at the house from the street, the left side had been a later addition, and the foundation had never been bricked in.  Instead it was closed off with some white plastic lattice that drove my mom crazy!  In the fall of 2012 we finally decided to make the front of the house a little more cohesive and hired a mason to brick in the foundation and build us a new stairway.

This was the only picture of the porch I could find from that phase, I know it's not great, please excuse it.

After they were done we tiled the steps and the floor of the front porch with slate tile that had originally been intended for our kitchen makeover.  We removed aluminum siding that covered some of the original beadboard ceiling and painted it blue (we are in the south, thank you very much), and added a hanging lantern that made better use of the high ceiling than the standard porch fixture that had been there before.  The original railings were not even securely fastened to the posts so we replaced those with some that I felt fit the character of the home better.

We put a glider and coffee table out there, along with some additional chairs and a rolling cart which the UPS man particularly loved and after that spent plenty of time porching while watching our oldest run around the front yard.  It worked particularly well for us because our lot was triangular with a huge front yard and small rear.  A lot of play time was logged in that front yard and having a comfortable and inviting place to sit was integral to our quality, family time.