My Back Porch by Nannette Croce

Funny how it is sometimes the little things that enrich our lives. Take my back porch.

Just about all the suburban houses in my part of the country, built in the last couple decades, come with wooden decks. A great feature people use about three times a year when it’s not too hot or too cold and the bugs aren’t biting. I’d completely forgotten about screen-in porches like we had in my childhood home, until, ten years ago when we were looking for a new house, that back porch was what clinched the deal.

I know other things in my house hold far more value real estate wise––the kitchen we updated, the size of the family room, the full basement, but I’d take a house half the size so long as it had that screened-in porch. When we first moved in, a hectic year for me following an untimely death in the family, a new business venture for my husband, and, of course, the stresses of buying and selling homes simultaneously, I made a point of taking some reading time on that porch every afternoon. It always catches the breezes, the angle of the sun in spring turns the yard a deep green, and the surrounding plants and bushes attract an array of birds, including hummingbirds.

Even in the rain, I love sitting in the protection watching the storm rage around me, now and then a spray of rain being carried in by the wind––refreshing on a muggy day. And in winter it’s a nice place to watch the snow fall and stack the wood for the fireplace.

Forget the square footage and the number of baths, when I look for the home I will retire in, I want a screened-in back porch.