Ornate front porch

[thegreenlight]

My 30s house has a very boring and plain frontage - we have decided to stay and do some work. We are having a bay fitted and I thought a porch would be nice (currently have arched doorway but no porch as it has been filled in to make the hall bigger). I started simple but things have escalated and I have fallen in love with this porch - planning on painting it this colour and having matching taupe/mushroom door and windows too. What do we think? Too much? I thought it had a bit of a 30s vibe maybe?

Just trying to be helpful.. I said your house is a box because it is very boxy. Mine is too.

Your house probably did have an arched inset porch, its just that its been filled in, so you have three choices:

1. Go modern which you've said you don't like
2. Put on something inappropriate. Others might think it looks dreadful but as pp have said, its your house and you are the one who really needs to like it
3. research period appropriate styles such as the Woking one on the BTF website/the john lennon one, reinstate your arched inset porch etc

Personally I think its a shame if your house has internal 30s features not to go with something vaguely period appropriate.

loads of 1930s/1940s porches on pinterest to give you further ideas

I do see that - I don’t want to reinstate the porch as it gives us valuable space in the hallway. There is no inspiration that has filled porches, always much nicer period doors with side windows. I’m just finding it all so frustrating. I don’t want to do it wrong and then it dates horribly.

OP, what’a The style of the front garden? Just from what I can see in the photo, it looks like your style is more minimalist/modern than country cottage or traditional style? It’s worth bearing in mind how it might all fit together with what’s already there.

So for me, I am quite traditional in my tastes in both garden and house. I have lots of plants, lawn, hedge pots in our little front garden. If I fitted a very modern contemporary front door/porch it would jar with the style of my front garden. So maybe make sure you’re not doing the other way around.

I think the overall look of the front needs to work. There is nothing worse than seeing a fake grand portico or lions on a tiny little boxy semi. I think if you work with the period of the house then generally it all works better and has more class.

Having said that, I am also a fan of going with what you love! As long as it doesn’t put off future buyers then just go with what you really want.

Are you saying you don’t want to add a porch to the front of the house, by the way? I’ve misunderstood what you meant by porch I think.

A proper porch would work, and you could paint it in the colours you like. Make it part of the building as opposed to an addition.

I think a porch the shape and colour you have chosen, just a bit less frilly would be perfect - could you get the same shape without all the carved / embellished bits?

You already have a window on the ground floor that sticks out so personally I can’t see sticky outy porches looking wow on the property - they suit completely flat facades better.

Your house isn’t the same period and has different proportions to the ones in the photo but I do think that a door that fits the opening, matching windows and planting would do the trick.

Or maybe the front door wouldn’t look so bad if at least it didn’t have that strong contrast with the white PVC.

I’d probably spend a bit of my budget on a bespoke door to emulate the one from the pic. It’d look stunning on a 30’s house.

We have a porch like that but ours is a (small) Victorian double fronted cottage so it looks in keeping. I think your current doorway looks lovely and suits the house perfectly. I'd spend the money on some luxuries indoors /landscaping.

It doesn't quite go, OP, but if you love it I would just go for it. It's your house, and it'll make you happy every time you come home. I'm assuming you're not planning on moving anytime soon?

I do think you'll need to tie everything in a bit better though. It's difficult to imagine what the new windows will look like, but to go with the country cottage style I would definitely soften up the front of the house with lots of pots of cottage garden plants. It looks a bit boxy and soulless at the moment, which is why it jars with the very ornate porch.

I think landscaping would make a massive difference. Its currently very plain and even though you have decent sized lanterns there (they should between a quarter and a third of the height of the door so yours look about right for size), they are really dark and can't be seen against the dark brick.

If you had lovely brass lanterns and brass door furniture on a 1930s style door, some planting along the front of the house rather than quite so much gravel and a bin store to hide them away it would make all the difference. I'd perhaps change the gravel out for something lighter too (or mix some lighter stuff in with what you have). Its all so very dark.

We have a massive drive so there is a grasses area to the front of the house With a curved paved border and a curved paved area to the front too- it does need work still though.

I always hated the front of the house - I cried when my husband said we were buying it! He was right in retrospect - we have a fabulous extension with bifolds onto a lovely garden and it’s an amazing area.

I just can’t seem to like it from the outside. The door was white PVC and I painted it so only a short term fix. No one is able to show me a nice house with an arch door (with frame) like mine. I’m feeling despondent. I know there are gorgeous 30s houses out there but mine is not one of them.

Our last house was a 1928 semi, so almost 1930's and it had a porch similar to yours except it was just the roof bit IYSWIM. There were no parallel struts to the side, but it had the apex roof. It was very pretty and all the houses had it so in keeping with the period, but not as cottagey.

I think you really need to spend some significant time on sites like Houzz and pinterest researching.

I do empathise. I hate the front of my house. It isn't symmetrical despite having two large gables and the windows are in desperate need of changing out (even though they're perfectly functional). It took me a long time to get the porch plans right so that the house didn't look out of keeping and it will be expensive to do it, but its worth it to have the right shape and style on the house. I also currently have hard landscaping butting right up to the house and its a massive part of the problem so its being replaced with beds (even though I have loads of garden elsewhere and really don't need more garden to maintain). But hard landscaping hitting hard plain wall is rarely going to be the best look. The good news is that's easily fixed with planters.

I love tire idea. I think it looks really cute.

If you google 1930s semi and look at the images most have a double bay extending up to the roof line. Yours doesn't have that and in fact even the bay you have isn't a real bay, its simply a bay window on a flat fronted house.

It might be better to spend the money bringing the bay down to floor level and putting a sloped roof on the bay (even if its fake and doesn't give you extra floor space internally). That will bring more shape to your house and you won't need the porch as much.

We are building a bay! We are having a box bay though this is a bit out of keeping with the other houses which have flat fronted bays. We are having a boy bay for the extra space inside as though our family room to the back is massive, the original living room is quite small.

I really think once you put in a box bay then you can decide on the porch. You could have a tiled porch roof to match the new bay ie sloping forward rather than a gable style (assuming it will be tiled), and then have the wooden supports/brackets at the sides like the porch you like. Might give you a balance between country cottage and tying the new features together.

I really think once you put in a box bay then you can decide on the porch.

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Definitely do the bay first. Then you can see what you’ve got.

The porch you picked out is so nice , I totally understand why you love it. But (sorry) I just can’t see it looking right on your house.

Personally I dont think the house would be improved (aesthetically) by a porch, not long term and not worth the money you’re proposing! £10k might not go far but it’s still a sizeable amount.

The porch was only £3000 the rest would be for the new door and windows and to put the bay in. A bit of a stretch to do it for that! It is a lovely porch. Maybe for my make believe house in my head should have it (DH won’t move and I don’t want to really either!) it’s just so bland. I wanted a transformation but I guess I have to work with what I have.

I love the porch pic but - I think it will look totally wrong on your house. It is more of a cottage, arts and crafts look. If you love it and are planning to stay there a long time then who cares what I or others think but it might put people off buying in the future. If I was to do anything I would get a very traditional 30's looking door (recycled), paint it a pretty colour, traditional sash windows from the era and pretty the front up using some plants and a climber around front door. My daughter has a 30's house and I will attach a photo of her door.

That’s a lovely door - but again not in a filled in arch. I take your point about the planting. We have never really bothered because we knew it needed work so haven’t given it the time it needs. I’m going off the porch idea. I’m looking into getting a truly lovely shaped door like this one to compensate.

That's not a 30s door @ColdOopNorth. That's usually called a Carolina or something similarly southern States sounding. Pretty but not a 20s/30s door.

Original porches in my road have a sloping, not apex roof with wooden support struts at the front. Some to a short brick wall and some to the tiled floor. Then a small, waist high wooden fence around the sides and a little at the front. And a wooden decorative bit dropping down from the top of the roof. Hard to find a picture but more like mini-verandahs. Not fancy houses but very pretty porches. I wish we had the original still but once you have an actual, enclosed porch, it's very difficult to get rid of the space for aesthetics.