The front porch: A place to relax and be neighborly

Home and Garden

The front porch: A place to relax and be neighborly

The front porch can bring neighbors together, as these homes in Midtown show.

Interior designer Murray Vise uses a tree stump as a table on his Argonne Avenue porch, which is across the street from Dawn Landau. Other features of the porch include two Lloyd Loom rockers and a bamboo palm.

"I chose the chairs because they were the most comfortable rockers for me, and I'm 6 foot 8 inches," Vise said. "When I was younger, I had butterfly chairs out here, but these days I can't get out of those as easily."

Landau has made few changes to the layout of the couple's 1926 bungalow.

Schnauzers Beauchamp and Baxter run to the fence to greet everyone who walks by on their Argonne Avenue home.

Kitts and Landau's home has three bedrooms, two baths, a formal living room and dining room, and a built-in butler's pantry.

"We've met most of our neighbors sitting right out here," said Dawn Landau, shown on her front porch with her significant other, Terry Kitts.

The dining room holds a round table that encourages conversation and a drop-leaf table that works as a serving piece. The drop-leaf also goes outside for impromptu dinner parties on the porch.

"Everything here has a story or we use it, and to me, that's what makes the house a home," says Landau.

Michael Daly (left) and David Donaldson with their Schnauzers Baxter (left) and Beauchamp. The men say they get updates on the community from pedestrians passing by their ground-level porch on Argonne Avenue in Midtown.

Landau and Kitts hung a mirror and shutters on their porch. "These pieces give us a little screening and a sense of privacy," says Landau.

Candles add ambience to Landau and Kitts' porch.

Vise uses the tree stump as a cocktail table. An autumn clematis vine grows up the brick columns and provides a bit of screening from the street.

The couple took out a wall between the kitchen and breakfast room to enlarge the kitchen.

Landau decorated the front room with a mixture of old and new, including a zebra rug and a fireplace screen she bought at Lakewood and decoupaged to create a chessboard. Also in the room is a 1920s icebox from her hometown in Tennessee.

One of two bathrooms in the home.

Landau and Kitts are partners in Environs Residential Design & Construction, and their primary business is renovating intown property. They bought their 1926 bungalow in 2004 and are only the second owner-residents.

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Interior designer Murray Vise uses a tree stump as a table on his Argonne Avenue porch, which is across the street from Dawn Landau. Other features of the porch include two Lloyd Loom rockers and a bamboo palm.

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