I have a 6'x8' porch that goes to the front door, and I want to enclose it and use it as a storage room. I'm planning on putting a new front door where there is currently a double wide window in the front room (living room). An addition (family room) was added several years ago (before we bought the house), so the new front door will be more centrally located. I plan to replace the existing front door with an interior door to be used as the door to the new storage room. Right now we get absolutely no use out of this porch and the existing front door. When people visit, they go to the side door of the family room in the breezeway, since it's right next to where they park. So, it makes sense to get some use out of this area and use it for badly needed storage space.
The roof already extends over the front porch and it is insulated above with blown in insulation. The floor is a concrete slab on top of a foundation. There is also already a porch light in the center of the ceiling controlled by a switch inside the house next to the door. So, it seems to me that it would be a fairly easy project. All I have to do is put up 2 walls and replace the door. The existing door has a long window right next to it on one side (I don't know what these are called, it's a window about a foot wide and the same height as the door), which will be replaced with a short wall section. There is a heat/cooling floor register right in front of this window, so I'm thinking I can just put a hole with a side register in the new storage room wall section right above this floor register and that would heat/cool the storage room well enough (since it's just storage space, it doesn't need to be heated/cooled as well as the rest of the house). Since the concrete floor is about 6" lower than the house floor, I plan to build a wooden floor on top of it and insulate it underneath to keep the floor warmer in the winter. This wooden floor will just sit on top of the concrete slab. I'll use treated lumber, since moisture will probably come through the concrete.
So, am I missing anything? Will this work? Thanks.
Sounds good to me. Are you planning on putting a window in the storage room? As for the old front door and sidelight It should be easy to remove then adjust the framing to fit a new interior door.
I would lay out some plastic on the concrete before I put down the sleepers. The heating vent could cause a draft to come from under the door and head for the nearest cold air return. If you are going to be sitting between the door and the cool air return you will feel that draft. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] I had a similar problem and I put a small electric oil filled heater that looks like a radiator in the new room. It runs off 110v and should solve the problem. They go for $40 or so at Lowes.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one tearing apart my house. Your plan sounds good. I'll echo the comment about the vapor barrier.
Don't know what you are planning to store, but, why heat or cool it at all? One option is to leave the exterior door up and let it do it's own thing (temperature wise).
Thanks for the quick responses. I hadn't thought of using plastic on the concrete as a moisture barrier. I'll do that for sure! I assume the clear plastic sheeting they sell at Walmart and Lowes would do the job. There won't be any windows since they'll just interfere with storage space and shelving. There's nothing but a hallway between the door and the cold air return, so drafts won't be a problem, but good point since I hadn't thought of that either. It does need to be heated, since I'll be storing paint and other things I can't keep in the unheated garage in the winter. We'll probably also store food in there, such as jugs of apple juice, soda, etc.
Actually, the new front door will probably be as big a project, so stay tuned for a post on that!
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