This Brentwood outdoor living area includes a porch, elevated deck, patio, outdoor kitchen and a fire pit

When we were first called to this Nashville home in the Brentwood area, the homeowners had an existing deck that they couldn’t get much use out of because of sun. The family loved to entertain and often had big parties at their house on the weekends. They were looking for a combination space with multiple outdoor living areas. This is quite common with Porch Co. customers. Our customers are looking to invest in outdoor living and we work together to design a comprehensive space to fit how they want to live.

Coming right off the back of the home are a large airy screened porch and a second story deck. Where the second story deck attaches to the home is a game room. The owner wanted to add french doors off the game room to an outdoor game and entertainment area. The floor of the elevated deck was made with AZEK tongue-and groove. While tongue-and-groove is not 100% waterproof, this does provide nice water protection underneath for the kitchen.

Notice the way all of the elements of this outdoor living area work together to create a functional delightful space

This outdoor kitchen unit's upper shelf is a bar from the other side

The nice thing about elevated decks is they create a covered patio space below that’s ripe for creating another great living space. Underneath the elevated deck, we built an outdoor kitchen. One feature you’ll notice is the stone cutout on the back of the bar area. By extending the top of the counter space and adding a cutout below, the outdoor kitchen unit becomes a bar on the other side. The outdoor kitchen unit used a synthetic stone and the cooking units were built right in. You’ll notice electrical outlets and lights on the columns to ensure the space is completely usable after dark and with other cooking and entertainment accoutrements.

The screened porch interior features large timbers and a lovely arched motif

Moving over to the large screened porch, we used large timbers for the porch’s interior. The screened windows incorporate an arch motif to add to the visual appeal. The porch flooring is tongue-and-groove cypress which we often use for interior flooring as it adds to the interior feel of the room. For the railing, we used powder coated aluminum railings. Aluminum is a great material for railings it doesn’t rust and the paint will last indefinitely. In addition, because the rails are a dark color, your eye tends to pass through the rails and allows you to focus on the area beyond.

The exterior doors of all of our screened porches at The Porch Co. are custom made out of cypress. This allows us to design the doors to match the porch instead of the other way around. Our screened doors are made to be incredibly strong and stand the test of time.

One consideration for the interior room adjoining the porch is light. Although the porch will enjoy lots of light, it effectively robs the adjoining room of some light. To maintain a high light level in the adjoining room we added 2 Velux skylights in the porch roof.

The final element of this outdoor living area is the large patio with built in custom fire pit. The patio is built of traditional concrete pavers. The patio retaining wall doubles as a bench for more seating.

For a free consultation on your dream Nashville porch and outdoor living area, give us a call at 615-662-2886. We look forward to hearing from you.

Nancy Moore, founder of The Porch Co. Nashville

Nancy Moore, founder of The Porch Co. Nashville

Give us a call for a free consultation – 615-662-2886. We look forward to hearing from you.

This Brentwood home includes an open porch and a screened porch

Today’s outdoor living areas often include more than just one setting. Often our customers will pair a porch with a patio or deck to allow 2 distinct living areas. For these Brentwood homeowners a screen porch and open combination was just what they wanted.

The screened porch is a traditional porch with a vaulted ceiling and exposed rafters. The roof is gazebo shaped and finished with spruce planks on top of the rafters. The porch includes an outdoor fireplace to provide heat in chillier months as well as ambiance.

This Brentwood home's screen porch includes an outdoor fireplace and a beautiful gazebo style roof

The floors are a tongue & groove cypress which we use as a standard. The cypress makes the room look more finished and more like an interior room. We used track lights on the collar ties.

The screened area includes varied sized columns. The wider columns between screened window units define the window space well. Within the 2-part window space, we used a narrower column to promote visibility. We used an arch over the box columns to match an arch motif on the front of the home. The kneewall is low to promote maximum visibility into this beautiful yard.

The large screened porch includes 4 fans. As we’ve noted in past posts, we feel that air circulation on your screen porch is very important for comfort and for enhancing your experience on the porch.

Custom porch doors Nashville Brentwood TN

Moving over to transition between the two porches are our custom porch doors. We make all of our own doors out of cypress because we can’t find screen doors that perform the way we’d like and we want your door to match different elements of your porch such as the height and style of the kneewalls. In addition, the screen door has to take a lot of abuse. The door is exposed to weather on both sides. Our doors fit our porches rather than making our porches fit the doors.

The door set is flanked by beautiful gas coach lights.

Moving out to the open porch area, we used a flat roof. Atop the roof, we actually used a unique roofing product. The flat roof is visible from the second story windows. We look at our projects from every single angle. We even want the porch to look good from the upstairs windows. On the roof, we used a material called Durolast. It has an impregnated pebbled look which is more attractive than traditional roofing shingles. This is unique about The Porch Company.

Open porch in the Brentwood area of Nashville

We do our research. We search out the best products. If what we’re looking for is not available, we will figure it out, learn it, find it or even build it if need be. The ceiling of the open porch is beadboard.

For the open porch, we converted this Brentwood deck to a porch. We cleaned up and re-sealed the pressure-treated deck so it won’t deteriorate. The re-sealed deck will now be even less affected by weather because it no longer has access to full sun.

More fans were used across the porch and can lights were installed. There are lights on the columns as well.

We’re very excited about our signature custom railing we used for the open porch. In fact, these custom railings have become so popular, we are even accepting orders to build and ship these railings.

The Porch Company signature custom railings can now be custom ordered and shipped from The Porch Company

Give us a call for a free design consultation for your Nashville-area screened porch.

Not from Nashville and interested in ordering our custom railings for your porch? Give us a call for that as well – 615/662-2886.

Nancy Moore, founder of The Porch Co. Nashville

Open Porch with deck, patio, fire pit, and water feature

The story about this featured porch in Franklin TN is about transitions and multiple living areas. Although it may not be apparent at first glance, there is a severe slope from one side of the yard to the other. By having the porch, deck and patio at different levels we’re making a gentle transition from the home to the outdoor living area and from there into the back yard. There are only 3 steps with each transition so each transition is very gentle allowing this family to gently traverse to their outdoors.

While the stairs are an overt transition, we created a water feature between the deck and patio areas for a visual barrier between those 2 living areas. Water is so soothing and relaxing and also creates a cooling effect. By the proximity to both the deck and patio, people in both areas will be able to enjoy the soothing water sound. Enjoy the soothing sound in this video.

Open air porch with wrapped columns

You will notice that the columns are very much of a focal feature in an open porch. We always use beefier columns in our open porches because of big expanse between columns. They need to be bigger to look appropriate. The porch has a gable roof to tie into the house. We want all of our porches and outdoor living areas to look original to the home.

There’s a beautiful arch in the gable adds softness by bringing a curve motif into to structure. This curve motif is continued in the patio portion. The porch’s interior ceiling has multiple ceiling fans. This is another accoutrement we add as a standard. The more air movement under the porch, the better.

Franklin TN open porch with curtains and a grill area

On the far side of porch is extension where we’ve set the grill. This allows the grill to be up at the same level as the house but it’s not under porch roof. This keeps smoke off the porch. The owners can stand under the cover of the porch while cooking. This also doesn’t necessitate allocation of porch space to a large grill.

In this picture, you will also notice that there are screen curtains that are on a track at the top. These can be easily opened and closed for mosquito protection and protection from other elements.

Deck and patio with water feature visual barrier

The attached deck uses pressure-treated wood installed using a hidden fastener system. By using this system, there are no visible nails on the boards. The bubbling fountains in the water feature are made of stunning copper which will patina and blend into the porch.

The circular motif in the patio ties in to the circular motif on the porch. The retaining wall also serves as a wrap-around bench.

Finally, from a functional perspective, the decorative skirting creates a huge under-porch storage area which is so large the owners can walk in the storage area.

As you can see, there is a lot that goes into designing out outdoor living spaces. Every feature and every detailed is carefully planned to meet the homeowner’s needs and wants and our strict and discerning design standards.

Nancy Moore, Founder - The Porch Co Nashville

Give us a ring for a free design consultation at 615-662-2886. We look forward to hearing from you.

Nancy Moore, Founder - The Porch Co Nashville

Give us a call for a free consultation on building your dream porch. 615-662-2886. We can’t wait to talk to you.

Sincerely,

Nancy Moore, founder

Take this job, for example, in Hendersonville TN. While the front of this home was at street level, the back of the home had a steep drop off presenting a huge hurdle in gaining exterior access to the porch. There was an additional challenge to creating exterior access because the porch sat on top of a driveway. What you’re seeing in this picture is a boardwalk we designed that allows exterior access from the front of the home. Also working with the driveway, the porch had to span the driveway so people could drive under the porch.

The home is on a beautiful wooded lot and the owners wanted to see as much of the woods as possible but the porch was 8′ off the ground so we had to balance this with meeting all of the safety requirements. One porch element that has a huge impact on visibility is the railings. It was important for us to select a railing material that had a very slender profile for maximum visibility. But we also wanted to select a railing style that complimented the house.This home is an 1800′s log cabin that was moved to this site and restored. It had a great farmhouse feel. We selected rebar for the railings. It complimented the rustic style of the house while meeting the safety and visibility requirements.

The next challenge we had was tying into the existing roof lines. The home had multiple additions which made the roof lines difficult to tie into. Our talent is to figure out a roofline when so many other people said they can’t do a roof there. To achieve this, we designed a hip roof on all 4 sides making the roof symmetrical inside the porch.

At The Porch Company, selecting the materials is extremely important. This 1800′s farmhouse needed a very rustic yet still an elegant feel. For the interior of the porch, we used tongue and groove cypress with stain and sealer for a warm beautiful color. The inside of the home is all stained so the inside of the porch is stained as well. The outside wall is painted gray to match the house.

We used a low beadboard wall with rebar outside the screen, again to maximize visibility. Because the rebar rails are think and dark, your eye passes right through them. On the far side of the porch, the doors opened up to a deck we built. For that wall, we did not need to use the low wall so we opened up the low wall area by using screens.

At The Porch Company, our strength is our finding creative solutions to challenges which not only solve those but turn those into accents and features of the design. Give us a call for a design consultation at 615-662-2886. We look forward to speaking with you.

Nashville rustic screen porch with beadboard walls and tongue & groove cypress

You can see the all-weather curtains behind the table

At the porch company, we are creators and inventors. We are always thinking of new ideas and staying ahead of the curve. We want to share one such creation with you – great porch all-weather curtains!

Here in Nashville, a good set of all-weather curtains can dramatically increase the amount of time you can spend on your porch. All-weather curtains can block out rain, mist, and wind. In addition, they can also keep warmth in. We couldn’t find a good solution on the market for all-weather curtains – so we created our own!

We’ve got a solution that we continue to refine – but it meets our objectives which are:

1. They must be attractive
2. They must be easily opened and closed at least on a daily basis
3. They must be functional blocking wind and rain while staying in place
4. They must be hung from the inside.
5. They must be easily put up and taken down

Nancy Moore, Founder - The Porch Co Nashville

Here’s how they work. The curtains are hung on a curtain rod and are tied with decorative knobs. They are clear vinyl with decorative fabric edging. Because they are hung on a curtain rod, they look pretty and can be easily opened, closed, put up and taken down. They are anchored to the wall in key places so they don’t blow into the room. The curtain hardware including the rods and tie-backs are attractive and can stay up year-round making it very easy to put up and take down.

Our vision is to sell these online after this current busy spring/summer season.

To find out more about having us include all-weather curtains when we build your new screen porch, give us a ring at 615-662-2886 or email nancy@porchco.com

Notice the clear all-weather curtains on the windows behind the corner chair.

Nashville screen porch with outdoor fireplace

Ten years ago, a porch was just a porch. It was a beloved room in the house but it was an appendage to the back of the home. It might have looked half as finished as the interior of your home and likely didn’t use materials that complimented your home nor used materials with the level of quality as your home. Today’s porch is not just a porch. The porch is the heart and the hub of your outdoor living space. It’s your invitation and entree into the outdoor living area of your home - truly an extension of your home.

A couple things have inspired this transition to outdoor living. First, as families are getting healthier, they’re spending more time outdoors. And, with the economy, families are investing their hard-earned dollars that would previously have been earmarked for vacation to create that beautiful sanctuary respite just outside their own back door. Today’s porch is both an extension aesthetically and a true compliment to the design of your home but it also has the feel of a getaway. For example, thirty to forty percent of our porch customers are incorporating fireplaces into their porch.

Pavilion style screen porch with outdoor fireplace - The Porch Co Nashville

But the evolution of the new porch extends far past making the porch into a real room. Today’s porch unfolds and continues the magic out the porch’s back door to stunning patios, elegant pergolas, creative fire features and soothing water features. Textures of stone and wood are mixed and matched elegantly and intriguingly. Gently bubbling water features are tucked near seating areas for a refreshing view and soothing sound. Today’s porch may even be the culmination and final destination of your stunning outdoor living space or detached from your home. Your patio may lead to a pavilion style detached porch complete with it’s own facilities for washing and bathing.

Outdoor living oases are still finding their way as it relates to bolder amenities such as the integration of entertainment and sound or the integration of fuller kitchen features. While most of our porches integrate mounted TV’s and pergolas may incorporate speakers to fill the patio with your favorite music, we think the outdoor kitchen has not yet completely found its way. Some of the outdoor kitchens seem exciting because you can truly cook and serve and store outside but many are clunky, big, and not very functional. There will be a trend to refine outdoor kitchens to make them more functional, prettier and more light-hearted.

Nancy Moore, Founder - The Porch Co. Nashville

Today’s porch is filled with your personality, designed-inspired by your tastes and is the answer to what a peaceful oasis means to you. On our design visit, we ask you how you really want to live in your porch and your outdoor living space. We design and recommend materials around you, your home and your owner personal tastes. Give us a ring for a consultation and a design visit to our showroom. We’d love to help you dream about your new porch and make that dream a reality for you and your family. 615.469.1391. nancy@porchco.com.

The Porch Company showroom in Nashville

At The Porch Company here in Nashville, we just love design. We love every step of the way. That’s why we’ve been designing and building porches here in Nashville for over 20 years.

I want to tell you a little bit about how our process works. When you’re interested in adding a dream porch to your home, we invite you to our showroom for a design visit. You bring along a picture of your home and ideally your plot plan if possible. In our showroom, we have pictures of jobs, a full-sized screen porch for design ideas and lots of material samples.

During your showroom visit, we discuss your ideas for your new porch. We really want to know how you want to live in your new room. Will you use the room to entertain? Will you have many family meals out there? Do you want a quiet refuge? Do you want to enjoy a quiet cat nap on lazy afternoons under a thinly veiled window? Are you thinking rustic or formal or casual?

After hearing about your dreams for a porch addition, we start sketching. During your visit, we sketch the porch addition to your home – whether a front porch, back porch, detached porch or other porch structure. The next step is for us to get plans and move to the formal design stage.

There is a design fee for moving into this stage. During this stage, we visit your house to take pictures and take measurements. This stage of the process is very interactive. We send email periodically so we work closely together. It’s important for us that you know exactly what you’re getting. We want you to become familiar with the plans. If you know what you’re getting, you will be happier with project. After the design is approved, you commission us to start building. To get a sense of the process all the way through, take a look at this video.

Call us today for a consultation on a porch addition to your home. We look forward to talking to you and welcoming you to our design studio for a visit. 615-662-2886

Nancy Moore, founder

The Porch Company Nashville

Perhaps you are thinking of a light an airy feel

Making a decision to add a new porch or outdoor living space to your back yard is a big decision and big decisions takes time. If you are planning on moving forward with your project for 2012, you likely started thinking about your project some time in 2011 or even earlier. From a construction perspective, building your home renovation also takes time. It takes time to design your project and to get on the construction schedule. While we would love to start building each project right after the agreement is signed, there is no way to get around doing it right. You wouldn’t want us to.

Spring and summer are our busiest seasons and that’s unfortunately when our waiting list is the longest. You’ll befind that any reputable builder has a waiting period to get started. Often, the better the builder, the longer the waiting list for a project start date. But, the good news is the sooner we start planning and designing, the sooner we will get your project completed for you.

Once we get started building your project, we want the building process to be a good experience. You’ll find that many of our customer’s reviews indicate their enjoyment of our process.

Give us a call now to get the design phase started right now. You can reach us at at 615-469-1391 or email nancy@porchco.com. We look forward to talking.

Nancy Moore, founder