The Porch Defines and Reflects the Historic Character of a Home

Why is a home with porch space so special? The porch adds two distinct functions to the value of a home: The front entry and the display of the architectural period statement and the intrinsic value, or the actual use of the porch. The relationship of space, features, materials, and finishes, give a home historical character. The porch can have multiple advantages. Whether it is the main, formal entrance to a grand, large home, the formal entrance to a more modest home, perhaps not the ‘front door’ but the entry from a porte-cochere, or the rear of the home overlooking the gardens or another scenic view, it is a place of quiet, family and friend times. The impact to the character of the house in coordination with doors, fanlights, sidelights, pilasters, entablatures, columns, balustrades, and stairs adds value beyond financial gain and benefits you and your family for years to come.

The design of a porch creates an architecturally significant, welcoming entry, that focuses on views of the landscape, provides a retreat, and/or to serves as an extension of the living space of a home.


It can be enclosed by screen, latticework, windows, or design featured walls, and in the beautiful homes in Salisbury North Carolina, they often incorporate period design and statement architectural integration. They are usually architecturally unified with the rest of the house, while decks which are typically open to the sky are not usually architecturally integrated with the home design.

Porches are extra rooms

Providing protection from sun and rain, porches can become an exterior room that generates more square footage to the home that can be used as living space. Accommodated with chairs, tables, and other furniture, the value of the home is greatly enhanced with a porch providing a place of relaxation and entertainment.


The key to a good porch is good design.

When looking for a new home in Salisbury NC, or when putting your existing home on the market, look at the porch and ask the following questions:

Does it match and complement the house? • Is it in the best location? • How functional and convenient is it? • Is the size too big/small for the yard and house?  If you are putting your home up for sale, you may wish to consider updates and features for your porch. You might want the flexibility to have screen windows that could be changed to glass doors. Consider the location of the entry and exits, and the flow in relationship to the main house entry. It may be possible to utilize an existing window or door opening to fit in with the scheme of the house. Does the porch overlook a garden or pool, the street or a scenic view? Are there built-in amenities? How does sun and wind affect the living space?


Curb Appeal: Can A Front Porch Increase The Value Of Your Home?

Beyond the beauty of a porch there are also several practical benefits including a good return-on-investment, enlarged living space, protection for your front door and foyer and more.   These benefits include:

Curb Appeal:  An impressive front entry is a critical aspect of curb appeal. The difference between a “flat-faced” home and a home with a full, covered front porch is most dramatic. Front entryways gracefully defined with architectural components beautifully complement a home’s style.

Added Value: Enhanced curb appeal is always desirable, and can translate into a higher selling price for your home down the road. Real estate agents often mention the importance of the front entry in photo listings and buyer visits.

Protection from the Elements: A front entry with no covering exposes your guests and home to damaging sun and rain. A porch or portico provides great protection for the front door, hardware, trim, lighting—and even, foyer. And your guests will truly appreciate it on rainy or hot, sunny day. It can even help lower your summer energy bills.

Magnetic Affect: If you have children or neighbors, nothing beats a covered front porch for entertaining! It’s a wonderful place to socialize, catch up on the latest news or just relax and enjoy the company.

Living is Easy: An expansive, shady front porch offers a delightful retreat. Add ceiling fans, comfortable chairs and tables and you’ve just added a lot more square footage to your home, not to mention, a special place to unwind and watch the rest of the world whirl by.

As a reflection of your home, an invitation to passersby and an open window to the world around you, the porch can be the threshold to the outdoors, a getaway to read a good book or a place to share coffee and conversation with friends. It will be a place where you build your memories, watch your children grow, enjoy a cool drink in the summer, and the place you find your private moments to take in life.

 

Looking for a home with a porch to build your memories?  Call your local Salisbury NC Realtor Greg Rapp at 704.213.6846 to see a wide variety of homes in Salisbury NC with fabulous porch designs.

Arts & Crafts Homes in Salisbury North Carolina

Homes in Salisbury, North Carolina are rich in the Arts & Crafts period style of architecture. From the turn of the 20th century to World War II was the unique period in American architectural history where ordinary people could afford finely crafted detail such as rich wood trim, art glass, and colorful mosaics in their homes. The Arts & Crafts movement made rich detailing a mainstay of home design. The Arts & Crafts architectural styles — Prairie, Craftsman, Mission, Four Square — are purely American styles. Unlike previous house styles that designers adopted from European models, American Arts & Crafts homes are homegrown. No other nation, with the exception of Canada, has anything like them.

Owners of Arts & Crafts homes possess a true gem — an American original — full of handcrafted details that are rarely seen in modern housing. Newly built homes are full of 1/2" gypsum board walls, painted MDF moldings, and carpeting over OSB subflooring. The Arts & Crafts home is full of thick, plaster walls, varnished quarter-sawn oak moldings with oak strip flooring over a thick pine subfloor - a work of art.

The Arts & Crafts movement began as a rebellion against the heady excesses of the late Victorian age. Victorian architecture, also prevalent in Salisbury NC, celebrated the abundance made possible by mass production and industrialization. Inexpensive trim and moldings could suddenly be made by machines, could be easily shipped anywhere in the U.S. on our newly built railroad system, and were used with elaboration to embellish Victorian architecture. By the end of the 19th century, ornamentation had reached its zenith, but by the 1890s many had had enough of industrialization. A widespread rebellion against mass mechanization and a longing for simpler times fostered the Arts & Crafts style. The thought prevailed that the former days of villages, craft shops, and artisans were healthier and more humanizing than assembly-line work in factory towns shrouded in smoke and dust.

Before finally dying out around 1910, the Arts & Crafts Movement in America spawned a stunning revolution in architecture and design that largely dominated the 20th century until the 1940s. The Arts & Crafts home styles are generously represented in Salisbury’s older and established urban neighbor¬hoods. The architecture lasted just 50 years, then, with the end of the 2nd World War, Arts & Crafts styles quietly died. Challenged to build unheard of numbers of houses to meet the ravenous postwar appetite for new housing, homebuilders quickly abandoned the leisurely, handcrafted detailing of the Arts & Crafts period. While it was sad to see such wonderful artisanship go by the wayside, it was a new era. America had changed, and so had its housing needs.

The legacy of the Arts & Crafts movement is still alive in Salisbury, North Carolina in the form of hundreds of Arts & Crafts houses throughout the area. Salisbury is a town of just over 30,000, conveniently centered between Charlotte, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem, NC - about 45 minutes from each. It is close to major shopping and sporting or arts events. Its housing prices are very attractive when compared to the rest of the country, and it offers a moderate climate. It has a historic downtown mere blocks away, and ten Historic Districts. To see an Arts & Crafts listing in Salisbury, or to list your gem with a Realtor, contact Greg Rapp at 704.213.6846 today.