Relaxed Three-Season Room With A Touch Of Class

Chris and Serena contacted the Degnan team with a request to renovate an existing covered porch located at the rear of the home, next to the pool. These customers own a Madison Area Builders Association Parade Home Parade of Homes house with a covered porch under ten years old. Being in a rural and windy neighborhood, items in the porch were constantly getting wet from rain and dust blowing in. At times, the breeze would actually make it uncomfortable to use in cooler weather. They wanted a remodel that would make their lives easier, protect their porch furniture, and that would extend the usability of the porch into more seasons. A three-season room was going to be the right answer.

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The Porch Existing Porch

The existing porch floor, neighboring pool surround, and patio area are composed of stamped concrete that is in good shape. No changes to the concrete floor were required. Instead, our goal was to infill the existing openings with three-season porch windows. Our clients sought to accomplish this as inexpensively as possible. To meet their request, we moved as few posts as possible, creating savings that allowed our clients to splurge on a luxurious gas fireplace in the room!

Converting The Space Into A Three-Season Room

The savings allowed our clients to splurge on the luxury of having a fireplace in the room! Their goal was to create a three-season room that felt like an indoor-outdoor space. The amenities and furnishings are similar to the home's indoors, but distinctly a porch and still an outdoor space. We evaluated different locations for the fireplace. One option was at the end of the room opposite the patio door, where it would be front and center in the view from the kitchen looking out. However, this would have blocked much of the view to the backyard. Therefore they chose to place it on the east side of the room, away from the pool. This location provides some privacy from the neighboring house and allows views to the south and southwest, the prime areas of the backyard, and the pool! This choice was clearly a winning solution.

The Interior Design

Design Coordinator Kelly Johnson helped the clients select the beautiful light-colored stone used around the fireplace, framed by a timber appearance mantle and beautiful, painted nickel gap wood. A tall baseboard was installed by Lead Carpenter PJ Ender, allowing electrical outlets to be placed under the windows. This feature means the windows appear to be going all the way to the floor. Due to the height of the room, transom windows were used. The ceiling of the room is nearly 10 ft tall! The proportion of the room maintains its human scale thanks to the scale of the windows and patio door, with the transom windows forming a horizontal line closer to the ceiling.

The Perfect Three-Season Room

The result is a comfortable three-season room on bright sunny days with the ability to close the windows to keep things dry and enjoy a rainy day. Being able to switch on the fireplace and temper the room when you're itching to get outside in the spring or extend outdoor living into the fall is an added luxury.

Built during Coronavirus, supply chain issues caused delays with the schedule and led to multiple reorders due to quality control concerns. Nonetheless, the Degnan Design-Build-Remodel team stuck by our clients until the very end, ensuring that everything was done right.

Click here to see before-and-after photos of this project side-by-side.