Your Own Screened Porch for Dummies

screen porch conversion

The intern stuck with checking the back list for dead links turned up one the other day, a Judi Light Hopson HomeSteady.com post about putting a screened porch on your deck. The original post may be dead (it deserves it), but the nice people at Leaf Group were kind enough to redirect the link to a post titled, "How to Change a Porch to a Screened-in Porch,"¹ written by none other than... Judi Light Hopson. We weren't surprised to learn that this post isn't much better...

The question seemed to us to mean someone wanted to know how to convert an existing porch to a screened porch. We asked around our design, remodeling, and construction types, and all of them said pretty much the same thing: close all the spaces with screens. How you do that depends entirely on the porch layout, of course, but the basics are the same: somehow make frames containing screens and stick them in the openings. Of course, if the openings are way big, maybe you can put in multiple screen panels instead of one; and , of course, you'll need a screen door as well.

That's not where Hopson went... no, the psychologist somehow decided that the porch in question is only a patio, which is where she came up with notions like,

• "It’s usually wise to build a screened porch on the side or back of a home." — Ummm, Judi? The question is how to "change," not how to "build."
• "You may want to expand the porch base or roof to make the final screened-in space at least 9 by 12 feet." — We repeat: the question is how to "change," not how to "expand."
• "Buy 2- by 4-inch pressure-treated boards to enclose the porch. Cedar is one option for a high-quality look." — A) you aren't enclosing the porch, you're framing the openings; B) cedar and "pressure-treated boards" are entirely different.
• "Buy roofing materials, such as half-inch plywood to cover roof rafters, and asphalt shingles... Secure all framework into place, including roof rafters." — It's a porch: it already has a roof!
• "Staple screening material into place, stretching it to smooth out all wrinkles. Add wood strips to cover all ragged edges and give the room a finished look." — Really: that's all she had to say about adding the screen? Didn't she realize that this part is probably the only thing the OQ wanted to know? Probably not...
• "TIP:  Install support framing, either permanent or temporary, before taking out existing porch columns that will not be utilized." — We have no idea why someone would be taking our porch columns for this job: you? Maybe modifying or replacing them, but taking them out? Naaaahhhh...

We looked at Hopson's references, and they were about building a screened porch from scratch. Apparently our Dumbass of the Day didn't know the difference between "build" something and "change" something. Small wonder she's back for her fifth award...

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_8603374_change-porch-screenedin-porch.html

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