Our Farmhouse Back Porch Reveal – The “1st Summer” Edition!

Alright y’all. I know it’s very late in the summer to be doing backyard posts, but it simply wasn’t ready til now and I didn’t want to wait til next year to play show-and-tell. So this is not an official “reveal” because we didn’t style it all out – mostly because I want to see how we wan to use this back porch before I furnish it – so a fully decorated spring reveal coming at you in like 6 months:) Today’s post is more about the design elements we used for building the back porch and how it came all together. A massive thanks per usual to the ARCIFORM team, both design and build (looking at you Jamie, Adam, Paul, Taylor, Steve and I’m sure many more) – there was so much work, care and expertise to get here. We are so happy and excited every single day.

In case you are just landing here – you NEED to see the before:

Yes that is the same house. Same view with a slightly different angle. Maybe this will help:

If you want a real thrill just scroll back and forth real quick between the before and afters. It’s truly incredible. So often I’m by the split rail fence and I can’t believe that not only is it over, but it turned out LIKE THIS!!!!!!!! I feel like the luckiest person on the actual planet. Thank you ARCIFORM, Studio Campo, Northwest Native, all our partners (Sierra Pacific, Velux, Rejuvenation, Sherwin-Williams) and especially all you readers who have followed along this longer-than-usual journey. And here’s a little video tour so you can get an even better sense of the space:

Double Porches… But Different Stairs??

We are breaking it down and per usual I’m going to point out some stuff you might have questions about (if you noticed). As you can see we ended up doing two separate porches (versus the big wrap-around deck, connecting the two). We have the large back porch and then the smaller porch, so why the different stairs? Well, the house has five entrances and exits, the stairs being exposed to the PNW rain in all of them. Wood stairs are not only more expensive to install than concrete, but they aren’t going to last as long (even the Robi wood that we used that’s meant to be extremely long-lasting but could at some point in my lifetime need repair). So doing all five in wood felt less practical and very expensive. But the idea of cement stairs off the back deck sounded harsh and depressing, so we chose to treat this differently and do wood on this big guy. Ultimately when you look at it in this shot it looks weird, but no one stands in this corner. Most of the time people are just looking straight back to the back porch and you don’t really clock the difference.

I LOVE how it turned out. We went with “steel” blue aluminum clad on the doors (from Sierra Pacific) and combined with the copper of the Carson Rejuvenation sconces, we couldn’t be happier (blues and blushes forever).

Same Porch But Two Different Railings?

Yep:) Ok so for the porch itself we wanted something classic and “sit-on-able,” meaning chunky, wood and at least 6″ deep and 30″ high. Great. Now we could have done the same railing down the stairs, but again with the heavy rains here it might rot quicker than we’d want. Plus this black railing just disappears (and it’s what we have at every other entry with the cement stairs).

We chose a very slight profile – 1 1/2″ on top and 1/2″ in thickness. I saw it on a fence in a neighborhood while is was on a walk and figured if we had to do metal (which we decided was the right way to go) we’d do it simply like that. It pretty much disappears (and we had to do it to pass inspections).

The view into the sunroom here KILLS ME. I love it so much. This is the corner that we might put a sofa because we don’t use this door too much. I do like to sit out here on the weekend mornings and read and drink coffee, but we could also keep it simple and just do two Adirondack chairs, with the same on the other side. Maybe some hanging swings? Still all TBD. We are using this summer and fall to see where people gravitate – usually having to do with kids, food, and shade.

I do have VERY good news about the mudroom – we are using it SO MUCH this summer. I feared that we put it in the wrong place, that it should have gone by the kitchen because that is certainly where the kids go in and out of most of last year. But now that we play in the backyard so much and the kids have a lot of poop to pick up and twice-a-day visits to our new secret farm animals (stay tuned for Monday!!!!), this exit/entrance gets SO MUCH USE. Muddy and poopy boots everywhere, but only on this porch or inside the mudroom, just like God intended it.

I really like how it looks like this was always how the house was – it doesn’t feel like a new build – thanks to ARCIFORM’s expertise in helping choose architectural finishes, including those sunroom windows which are just ridiculous.

She’s a happy home, y’all. I can’t believe it’s done and ours. We feel extremely grateful and thankful, most seconds of most days 🙂

What’s left for these porches? Well, we forgot to put the post cap on the mudroom post (extra credit if you caught that). Then in the spring we’ll furnish it all, style it out and get lots of shots of the living room doors open so you can get a better sense of flow. Y’all shooting exteriors is so hard – with the full sun you can’t shoot when it’s directly overhead or there are crazy shadows that are so high contrast you can’t really see what you are looking at, so we shot over two nights 6-8pm and didn’t have time to get all the shots that I wanted to (perhaps because one night we were shooting us and the kids in the pool with some wine??). When we do the full tour (coming soon!) you’ll be able to see how it all flows together and works so well. Talk soon! xx

Resources:
Architecture/Build: ARCIFORM
Landscape Design: Studio Campo
Landscape Construction: Northwest Native
First Floor Windows and Doors: Sierra Pacific
Wood Decking: Robi Decking
Copper Sconce: Rejuvenation
House Paint Color: SW 7005 Pure White by Sherwin-Williams
Adirondack Chairs: Wayfair
Pots: World Market

*After Photos by Kaitlin Green