The Front Porch

Last year when Jamie and I were considering building a home we looked at a number of house plans on the internet and other places. One thing I noticed almost universally: All the new home plans do not have a front porch that serves as anything but decorative, or as a rain shelter while you unlock your door. And these were pretty nice homes, 4 bed+ and very nice roof designs. They did all have, however, very large back decks.

We ended up not building a home but stayed in our current house. She was built in or around 1920. Luckily for us, old houses are not in very high demand in Macon and we considered our house quite a bargain when we purchased it, well below the national average in price. But when it was built I think it would have been considered on the upper end for our town. 3200 sq feet not including a full basement, 3 bath, 4 oak pillars in the entry, pocket doors and oak hardwood and fixtures everywhere. In fact the builder of this house had quite a vision for the future, because upstairs we have two bedrooms that are both 18x20 ft, both with walk in closets and one with a second closet. You just don't see these qualities often in old houses.

Anyway, back on track, our house has a 733 sq foot front porch. I know this because I have been over every inch a number of times in the last three months as I stripped off an outdoor carpet, glue and about 15 layers of paint. That might be a slight embellishment into the number of layers of paint, but I'm not sure. The original wood is in excellent condition and I can't wait to stain it.

Our back porch off the mudroom has about enough room for one adult and one dog and that's it. And I have noticed that the majority of old houses also have a large front porch. So this is interesting, when did the large size of porch move from the front to the back? What does this mean? And ( as we say in Inductive Bible study) what are the full implications of this switch?