The most striking cultural significance of the front porch is its connection to nature and the land surrounding it. Throughout the history of our nation, Americans have idealized nature and land… Yet along with the idealization of nature came an ideal to control it. Americans’ “manifest destiny” induced them to conquer nature, by building towns and cities, clearing forests, and otherwise civilizing the land. The front porch provided a compromise for these two opposing American ideals and connected human control, in the form of the house, to nature and the wilderness outside it. In essence, the porch “served as a vital transition between the uncontrollable out-of-doors and the cherished interior of the home.”

Now that the weather’s warm enough for porchin’, I’m just glad ours doesn’t look like this anymore — though we are still having other problems with it (via plep).