When we were designing our current home, I read about front porches extensively.
Social commentaries wrote of the decline of front porches as a metaphor for loss of community. Design folks talked about how so many homes have inadequate front porches – large enough to add expense, too small to actually live on. Go big or go home, they seemed to say. Yet they cautioned that plenty of people dream of a front porch, even build a usable one, only to find that their lives don’t match their aspirations.
I was, and am, determined to avoid that terrible fate.
We spent last summer putting a railing on the porch, made a gate for the front steps right before we licensed for foster care this year. Daniel got us a porch swing for Christmas and I used saved up gift money to buy a table and chairs.
Whenever the weather warms to sixty degrees or so, Daniel and I will move “couch time” out to the porch swing, swinging and talking about our days while the kids play in the yard. The wind chime Daniel gave me for my birthday a couple years ago jingles merrily behind us.
I get up to make dinner, and when the time comes to set the table, I tell Daniel that I think I’d like to eat on the porch today.
“I’m shocked,” he replies. “Shocked.”
Looks nice! I hadn’t thought about it, but the trend does seem to be a deck in the back rather than a front porch.