Front porch living is easy. It's funny because our previous house, that we had built new, had a huge front porch that wrapped around. I remember in the planning stages being adamant about wanting a big and deep front porch and it had to wrap around. Well, when you build a house that is bigger than it needs to be and you want a wrap around porch, you end up with a huge one. But like everything at the Humphreys House, cozy is better.
I have realized it is more about the depth of the porch than the size. At some point architects and designers decided to make the front porch more of a decoration to the facade than for any real purpose. They made porches shallow in depth which make it difficult to sit reclined, and new codes required railings that block the view. Of course it was the introduction of air conditioning that really killed the front porch. No longer did people gather and cool off in the evening.
To celebrate our front porch we gave it a good spic and span cleaning and hung some decorations. The porch had already been redone at some point in recent history so there was not any real work to be done on it. In fact, it is now that cozy outside room that you can sit in during all sorts of weather and just relax, leaving behind the to-do list for a moment to recharge your batteries. We enjoyed the thunderstorms from Friday by candlelight, sitting on the front porch not getting the least bit wet.
