It's definitely possible that z-ordering would fix my issue - I'm fairly new to gamedev and am not very familiar with working with sprite layers. I'd still really appreciate the separate porch sprite regardless. Thank you again for your responses!
It's in the files. If you want my advice, you should get used to both because you'll always need to use both. Tiles for the heavy lifting (where you'd need to repeat graphics countless times), and sprites (when you don't need to repeat too often and need more flexibility). GL!
