Turning a Bonaire GA deck into a screened porch

Both decks and porches are great outdoor living structures. Each has their own benefits. Decks allow you to spend time outdoors enjoying the fresh air, the view of your yard, and enjoying the “extra room” in your house. A porch allows you to enjoy all of these but it does provide a little extra protection. While a rainstorm will send you inside, a screened porch is a roofed structure. Along with the screens, the porch allows quite a bit of protection from rain and other storm conditions.

A porch provides two additional key benefits. Summers here in the Macon Warner Robins area can be brutally hot. With roof cover and a good ceiling fans, the mid-day temperatures are a lot more bearable. In addition, bugs are a big factor. Depending on a number of factors, your yard might be a treasure trove of mosquitoes and other biting insects. Some of the factors that determine how many mosquitoes you’ll have are the amount of standing water you have and the amount of landscaping you have. Mosquitoes need standing water to breed. So, anything from a pool to a koi pond to a bird bath will bring the mosquitoes in. This home had both a pool and a pond so the bugs were eating them up.

The home had an existing deck. The owners wanted a new porch to provide more outdoor living opportunities, including shade and bug protection. We were able to use their existing deck and convert it into a screened porch. If you’re thinking about converting your deck to a porch, often times that is an option. The deck substructure may require reinforcement but a good builder will be able to make that assessment as well as enhance the substructure to meet code and support the weight of the new roof. That was the case at this Bonaire GA home. Over 10 years ago, we built the deck on this home. The new homeowner saw the Archadeck tag on the deck and called us first to quote his upgrade project.

The new porch includes ipe flooring, a gable roof to create an open cathedral ceiling, large screened openings for great visibility, and the design deftly works with the challenge of attaching a roof to this home. In the middle of the screened porch area is a large chimney. The roof needed to not only to attach to the home but to also wrap around the chimney. That was no problem.

The lower deck also has ipe decking. The railing is pressure-treated wood with an ipe rail caps. White metal pickets and lattice complete the look. With the two distinct outdoor living spaces, the family can pick the level of sun protection they need based on the activity and the time of day.