With summer in full swing, my family and I take every opportunity we can to eat outside on our porch or on a patio off the kitchen. Somehow with the flowers blooming and the birds singing, alfresco dining feels to me, less like an average meal, and more like a celebration. Some of the homes we design have incredible views, and while we do everything we can to take advantage of those views from inside, what better place [...]
There are few things I enjoy more than relaxing on my own porch after work.There is no doubt in my mind that there is something psychologically unique about a porch. We are neither inside nor fully outside and exposed...
Older homes have a character that often is impossible to replicate. A 200 year old home has traces of daily life so different from our world today.
The best time to enjoy a sunroom can be the middle of winter. While we always think of sitting in a sun room looking out over a lush garden, the time when we need sun the most is when those plants are well below the snow.
I have always been a fan of porches. When I was little I would spend hours on my front porch watching the world move by. Now that I have kids, summer hours are often spent sitting, swinging, eating and entertaining on our porch. The wonderful thing about being out on a porch is that you are physically neither inside nor completely exposed to the elements on the outside. Psychologically I almost feel as though I am on vacation when I [...]
Every old home needs an advocate. A special someone who understands and cares about the details, the history, and the sense of place inherent in a period home. Those advocates may save that home from the wrecking ball or the vinyl siding salesman or the addition that would look better on a gas station. Two of those advocates are David and Nan Greenwood. Their home is in Hart’s Village just outside of the Village of Millbrook. Philip Hart built his [...]
About fifteen years ago my wife and I bought a circa 1790 farm house that had been added on to over the centuries. We restored portions of the house and renovated others. When our children outnumbered the available bedrooms, we decided to add on. Like many farm houses, ours was built close to the road on one side and next to a hill on the other. Of the two sides left, only one allowed us to add a bedroom without [...]
Owning a screened porch on a buggy summer evening is like owning a castle with a moat when the barbarians attack. The screened porch provides a place to relax outdoors without having to pay attention to the barbarian bug population. In general, the screened porches we design are larger than the average open porch. Most often they are designed as outdoor rooms and are furnished with sofas and chairs as well as dining tables and occasionally a fireplace. Screened porches [...]
Have you ever looked at a house and sensed that something about it wasn't quite right? Perhaps it didn't look finished or feel balanced. Was it the placement of the windows? The pitch of the roof? The size of the porch? It's not always easy to put your finger on what's wrong, but it helps if you understand a few principles of good design. These drawings illustrate the difference between porches that are appropriately placed and in good proportion to [...]
For almost as long as I have written this column about architecture, there has been a line at the end mentioning the upcoming publication of On the Porch written by Sandra L. Mahoney and myself. As the days draw near to this momentous event in our lives, my editor at Dutchess, Kate Goldsmith, asked me to write something about the book. Our becoming authors did not follow the standard arc of most aspiring writers. I will admit that around the [...]
