Porch Projects January 2007

There's lots to do to make a front porch more sittable. Some people are starting early, like the Massimini's and Eric Krause.

The Massimini's, of the Heights Realty Group Commissioned my company, Quillian Craftsman LLC to rebuild their porch floor. As it sits now, the porch has seen much repair work over time, splicing newer inferior wood into the old heart pine porch floors. While much of the flooring is still original and intact, the numerous patches have begun to prematurely wear and rot, especially on the edges and in the front walkway.

We're replacing the entire porch floor with heart cypress stained to a medium reddish brown. We stain the wood ahead of time, then seal it all the way around with polyurethane to inhibit moisture penetration. It takes extra time to do it this way but the way we see it, it doesn't hurt to take a little more time up front expecially if it makes the porch last that much longer.



We used cypress because of its weatherability. An oily wood to begin with, it naturally resists fungus and mold growth, and termites usually try to eat something else before they start making their homes in this stuff. I've eaten plenty of it and don't think it tastes any better or worse than any other piece of wood I've chewed on. Picky eaters those termites.

Next is Eric Krause's house. A designer with a keen eye for historical detail, this one is sure to be a gem. Eric is always telling me stories about the great deals he gets on Ebay. He took one light fixture he bought for $60 to have rewired and the guy offered him $1800 on the spot. He respectfully declined with a smile.

Eric has a unique front porch with decorative beam ends, some of which were chopped off in earlier days. One owner before him made the front porch into living space and cut the beam ends off most likely to make room for the aluminum siding which covered the house.

So we are removing the old beams that have been cut short to replace them with ones milled just like the originals.

Converting the porch to interior living space, the former owners also decided they should cut off the 8x8 sitting rail (choke). I can't imagine what they did with those pieces of lumber. From the ends that were left, they were obviously the best heart pine money could by back then. To replace such a beam (just one) would cost thousands, just for the beam, so we settled for southern yellow pine, for just hundreds.

Though its not shown in these photos, this house has a second story in which we will be putting brand new casement window. Yes I am making them. It's what I love to do - make windows.

I actually love doing most types restoration carpentry because of the level of out of the box thinking required to do quality work. Hopefully we'll keep doing it for a long time to come.

Any questions about the projects you are doing? Feel free to post a question as a comment to any one of my posts. I'll get it and respond. If I don't know the answer, I have connections and will be happy to connect you.