Remodeling porches can be a great advantage for your home. This example from DoItYourself.com illustrates that you can make more of your outdoors with these fresh-as-air ideas that use paint, stain, and fundamental carpentry skills to spruce up a plain backyard. Pesky insects, plus the desire to enjoy spring, summer, and fall relaxing outside, inspired the owners of an Atlanta, Georgia home to transform their back porch from a concrete slab to a screened-in showcase. The conclusion was simple; the solution wasn't quite so easy.

Though the homeowners knew they wanted to screen the existing back patio -- a square of concrete tucked under a roof overhang -- complications arose. The porch needed to complement the existing house and still withstand the local insects, high humidity, and scorching summer temperatures. The concrete slab had a slight angle for rain runoff, so the homeowners had to trim the inside of the frame to fit that slope.

Here's a step-by-step description of what they did:

1. Trim the paneling. Pre-primed four by eight-foot sheets of beadboard ceiling paneling are trimmed to fit.

2. Put in the ceiling panels and fan. A nail gun makes easy work of installing ceiling panels and is simpler than holding a panel while swinging a hammer. Before all of the paneling is installed, wiring is put in the ceiling for a fan and light. The fan allows the homeowners to keep their porch eight to 10 degrees cooler than the outdoors, while the light allows the porch to be used at night. One person clutched the fan while the other connected the wires then screwed the fan into place. The ceiling's finish trim conceals the seams in the paneling.

3. Put a frame around the porch. The two by four frame of the homeowners' porch was sized to fit the standard-width screens that were put in later. Crosspieces can be either nailed straight through the vertical braces or toe nailed in place.

4. Affix interior paneling. A staple gun attaches the interior pine-and-plywood beadboard paneling. Though the panels are level across the top, they had to be cut at the bottom to follow the uneven concrete floor, which slopes to accommodate rain runoff.

5. Connect and level exterior paneling. The hardboard exterior panels are put on one at a time, from the bottom up. The remodelers custom-cut the first one to follow the bumpy ground line. It required some practice tries to get the paint the same tone of pale yellow as the weathered version on the house. The weather-resistant exterior paint requires only a cleaning with soap and water to maintain its color.

6. Complete the screen. Vinyl grids are screwed straight into the wooden frame. The screens connect to the channels in these grids, creating a stapleless installation for fiberglass or aluminum screens. Once the screens are rolled into the grid channels using a spline, excess screen is simply cut off. A mallet snaps the caps over the vinyl channels and secures the screens in place.