Sitting on the Front Porch

 

Thanks to Wikipedia for the image of Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard Massachusetts.

I am sorry to say that the only thing that sitting on the front porch ever gave me was unnecessary public exposure when I was in Junior High and trying to learn to dance.  Too public to escape comment. 
However, I do remember sitting on the front porch with our pet monkey in the summertime and attracting plenty of admiration and provoking not a little fear in passers by.
Porch sitting is a time honored pastime.  Unfortunately, like letter writing, calling cards, and long, land line phone calls, it has almost disappeared.  Many people have removed somewhat historic porches from their vintage homes, leaving the houses lacking in ornament...somewhat design cripples.  We have gravitated toward the DECK in the past forty years.  These are oriented mostly to the back yard, where, like email, we tend to isolate ourselves from the community.
Whether you choose to face the street and watch the NON-CAR world go by, or site it on the rear of the house, there is a great deal to recommend a porch, or some sort of roofed or semi roofed structure over the DECK.
 The deck, of course, is defined as a device one attaches to a house that is used to broil the occupants to a crisp, drench their parties when sudden showers occur and reflect heat and ultra violet into the house. 
If you live in a dry climate and plan to fill your house with all white, synthetic fiber upholstery and tempt fate, with leather-like skin and skin tumors...then a deck is for you!

Some sort of shelter is by far preferable to an open deck.  A roof need not be solid.  A pattern of beams with cast cooling shadows across your deck or terrace.  If the broad part of the beams or joists face the south or southwest, broader shadows will be cast.  Pointing the joists in the direction of the hottest sun of the day, will shelter less.  As in the photo below, you can roll out bamboo matting or cloth over the beams for more complete coverage. 
Growing vines such as grapes, Wisteria, Campsis(trumpet vine), Laburnum(Golden Chain Tree) or other sun lovers can completely shade an area below the open rafters of a Pergola.
 

 

My grandmother's family home on Salina in the Aeolian Islands.  See the shadows cast by the twig matting over the rafters.

 

 

Note the overhanging vines, shading almond tree, pergolas and holes in the masonry for rafters on this arid, sun baked island.  Again, my grandmother's house.  This is springtime so there is plenty of green, but later in the year it can be very hot here.

 

I chose to put up a pergola in my house in Massachusetts.  It is a very simple idea.  It would drive the local codes man crazy.  The posts that support it on the side away from the house, rest directly on the ground.  If the bottoms of the posts rot, I will cut them off with a chainsaw, a few inches at a time and replace the bottom with blocks of stone or cement.  The frame does not rack side to side because I put in wrought iron corner braces.  These could just as easily be wood.  More on these later.

The only thing holding the structure up is the connection between the rafter on the side of the house and the connection to the top plate of the post wall.  a couple of nails on either side of the joists.  It will never fall apart, because the corner braces keep it steady on one direction while the entire structure is held tightly together by my Grasping, Twining, Wisteria vine that hugs the thing into a single immovable structure.

 

Doctor Willem Van Fleet rose, the parent plant of New Dawn growing on my pergola

 

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Notice the corner braces bolted into the beams and plate to keep the structure rigid side to side.  Chinese Wisteria growing over it.  This and many vines must be trimmed away from the house to minimize damage to shingles etc.

 

 

The bottoms of the posts are just sitting on a concrete block set in the sand base of the terrace.

 

 

Notice the corner brace and the massive vine holding the entire structure in place and immovable.

 

 

The terrace floor is on a clay soil base, sloped away from the house.  Sand is leveled on top of the base soil, and the stones are placed in the sand and leveled.  Sand is swept into the cracks.  The smaller spaces were eventually filled with smaller scraps of stone.

 

 

The stones are scraps from a counter top stone cutter, glad to give the pieces away as he has to pay to have them removed otherwise.  They are fine almost all the time, but in the winter can be slippery under the snow.  To minimize the problem, turn them dull side up, and use neutral stone colors so the color does not matter so much as this mostly yellow granite would when turned over.  You could help too by growing thyme or chamomile in the cracks.

 

 

The pergola when first attached to the house.  Simpler construction cannot be found.

 

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The fountain under the pergola is cut into a niche carved into a yew tree at the end of the pergola.

 

You could also plant a row of flowering trees along the perimeter of the terrace or deck, and train the branches to grow into a roof that is unsupported.  A simple support would hold a Laburnum tree or row of trees trained into a roof.  In fact, if the snow load is not heavy in your area, no support is necessary if the span from the tree is not huge.  A simple iron or wooden frame is best if snow and wind are an issue.  Do not attach them tightly, as tight wires, ropes or strings can cut into rapidly growing branches.  Allow gravity and interweaving of branches to do most of the work.

 

 

A painting of Sicily with the stone support columns and simple branches that inspired my pergola.

 

 

Laburnums can be trained into a shady roof for a terrace.  They grow very quickly, too.

 

The corner braces are an interesting story.  I designed them and had them done by an out of state blacksmith.  I had done some blacksmithing in the past.  Not a farrier, who makes horseshoes, but decorative work.  I am not trained to do anything so careful as horseshoes. 

I had a very nice design, but it was misread by the blacksmith.  Instead of it all being on one plane, it became three dimensional, a simple twisted bar with a stem springing out from it, and a grape leaf on each one.  I gave him options of Oak, Maple or grape leaves, and the maple seed or the oak's acorn.  What I got was a grape leaf, set at an odd angle, with a cluster of odd grapes that looked like a bouquet of pendulous breasts, all painted in rather lurid colors...Well.....those would never do...I got plainer single leaves in all black to replace them.  I could have done these myself, having done it at Kings Landing museum in New Brunswick and as an art teacher, but I did not have the equipment.  A forge is a wonderfully simple thing to make, but you really have to live somewhere where burning your forge building to the ground would not be an issue for the town, neighbors or insurance people.  Otherwise it all has to be built in masonry and steel.  I do not live in such an area, nor did I have the money to build in masonry. 

I would recommend this art.  Anyone who is creative would love blacksmithing.  It is not common, and much that is seen, is done with stamp out and pre-cast parts.  A real crafts man could make a good living from this, and it is really satisfying. 

 Read a little about a fine blacksmith in: "Under the Tuscan Sun"    by Francis Mayes.

My grape leaves were cut out of flat steel and marginally molded for a slightly realistic look.  They are a far cry from the beautifully forged and tortured forms that a good craftsman can make with a little effort.  Nevertheless...they are attractive without the bouquet of breasts. 

 

More to come on this post.....