Dovetail Porch Co. · Screened & sleeping porches · Maplecroft & Sunday Hollow · Third generation
The evening is better behind a screen.
Screened porches, sleeping porches and three-season rooms built the slow way — spline-set mesh a mosquito cannot argument with, beadboard ceilings, columns turned to the pattern your house already speaks, and footings below the Maplecroft frost line. Grandfather’s trade, current code.
Screens spline-set, never stapled · footings to 44 inches · fans wired before the trim · (555) 741-3382 · porch@dovetailporch.example
A porch is a promise that the day has more evening in it.
The shop on Maple Green
Built behind the screen, not around it
Walt Dovetail screened his first porch in 1954 with a spline roller he still owns; his granddaughter runs it now. The method has not changed because the failure has not: a stapled screen lets go at the first hailstone, a spline-set one holds its tension for a decade. We frame the porch so the screen is the last thing on, the ceiling fans are wired before the beadboard goes up, and every column is turned to match the house — not the catalogue.
Services
The porches we build
01
The screened porch — from $168/sq ft
Fibreglass mesh in 18×14 spline-set into painted cedar frames, a beadboard ceiling overhead, and a knee wall or a rail to the code your inspector carries. Sized to the swing and the rocking chairs you already own, and drawn with the door where the cross-breeze wants it.
02
The sleeping porch — from $152/sq ft
The room your great-grandparents summered in: screened on two walls for moving air, shutters or storm panels for the shoulder seasons, and a floor that sweeps — the porch that turns a July bedroom into the best night’s sleep in the house.
03
The three-season room — from $214/sq ft
Storm-screen combinations that swap in an afternoon, an insulated roof, and the option to rough in for a future four-season conversion. Built so the day you want glass, the walls are already waiting for it.
04
The porch restoration — from $4,900
Straightened posts, re-spline screens, a ceiling repaired board by board, and the footprint kept exactly as the house remembers it. Most porches older than forty years need a restoration, not a replacement — we say which, in writing, for free.
Maplecroft · Sunday Hollow · 2025–2026
Porches from this season’s book
Six rooms from a year of them, photographed in the hour porches exist for. The ledger at the shop goes back to 1954 — ask and we will find the porch nearest your road.
How a porch goes up
From the first cross-breeze to the last bead
A porch is a room with weather on all sides — so it is footings and wiring before it is ever screens and trim. The sequence has been the same for three generations; only the code book changes.
The porch read
Where the sun sits at supper, where the breeze crosses, and what the house’s own trim is asking us to match. Sketch and budget band go home with you — free, whoever builds it.
Footings & frame
Poured to 44 inches, below the frost the county maps. The frame is a room’s frame — hurricane ties, proper headers, blocking at every rail post.
Wired before trimmed
Fans, lamp circuits and the switch by the door go in while the ceiling is still open. Beadboard over wires you can service is luxury; over wires you cannot is a mistake.
Screens, spline-set
Mesh rolled and spline-set into primed frames, shutters or storm panels fitted, and the last bead run. Then we sit on the step and let the evening test it.
Dovetail Porch Co. · Lic. #PC-1188 · third generation, same spline roller · porch@dovetailporch.example · 4 Maple Green, Maplecroft
They matched the porch to our 1911 columns to the turn of the profile — the carpenter brought a profile gauge to the first visit and photographed the originals. The screens went in spline-set and tight, and two hailstorms later they are still drum-taut. Our insurer noticed the footings before the porch.
We asked for a three-season room and got a cross-examination about which way the supper breeze blows — which was the right question. The room sits exactly where the air moves, the fans were wired before the ceiling closed, and July has a new favourite hour.
The sleeping porch is the room every visitor asks about. Screens on two walls, shutters for the cold snaps, and the sound of the hollow all night. Walt’s granddaughter drew it, and the crew that started it hung the last bead themselves.
The porch questions
Asked over the counter
Can you screen the porch we already have?
Often, yes — and it is the first thing we check. If the roof and footings are sound, a re-screen with spline-set frames and new kneewalls gives you ninety percent of a new porch for a third of the price. If the footings have moved, we tell you that instead, in writing, before anybody quotes a room.
Spline-set versus stapled screens — does it matter?
It is the difference between tension you can tune and tension you can only redo. A spline-set mesh is rolled into a groove and can be re-tensioned or panel-swapped in minutes; a stapled screen lets go at the corner where the hail found it, every time. We stopped stapling in 1954 and have not missed it.
Three-season or four — which should we draw?
Draw the three-season and rough in for the four. Insulated roof, the wall cavities framed for future glass, and the foundation already carrying the load — the conversion later becomes a fit-out instead of a rebuild. Drawing it four-season from scratch costs you a summer you could have been using the room.
What about the dog and the screen door?
Pet-grade mesh at the rail height on request — it takes a labrador at a full run, which ordinary mesh does not — and self-closing hinges rated for the traffic a screen door actually gets. We ask about the dog at the first visit, because the dog always has opinions.
Porch reads free across both townships · restorations quoted before replacements · (555) 741-3382 · porch@dovetailporch.example
Bring us the evening.
One porch read with a profile gauge and a weather eye, one drawing that matches your house, one fixed number. Maplecroft, Sunday Hollow and the hollows between.