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The porch was desperate for a facelift as well as a structural lift. The roof over the porch sagged a bit and it annoyed me badly. The wrought iron was rusted and in my opinion just didn't look appropriate for the house. Despite the fact that the house is overall in need of remodeling, it does have a formal country feel and needed an entrance to match. The old entrance looked tired and dated. Not exactly the "curb appeal" I was looking for. |
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I purchased two 6x6 pressure treated posts from Home Depot for approximately $8 and ran them through my planer to clean them up and give me a good surface for routing flutes. I built a fluting jig for my Bosch 1615EVS router and went to town. The strips of plywood at the ends and in the middle are just scrap pieces that are tacked on with brad nails and act as stops for the jig. That way all of the flutes start and stop at the same place. It was a lot of work, but they turned out fairly nice. |
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I built the rails from pressure treated stock pieces I found at Home Depot. They are meant for decking, but I think they should work just fine here. The spindles were the mostly costly part of the project at $2/each. Each lower and upper section of the handrail consist of two pieces that cost $4/each. Both the posts and the railings got primed and painted before being installed. |
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To determine how tall the posts needed to be, I had to determine how much the trusses sagged accross the porch. To do this I ran a tight string from one end of the porch to the other end and took some measurements. |
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You can see how much space is between the bottom of the joist and the string. Having determined under which joist each post would sit, I measured the distance between the string and the joist and added that to the measurement between the bottom of the joist and the concrete stoop. One post would need 1/2 inch and the other post would be one inch taller. Also note that the span of the porch seems to be supported by the 2x4 across the top. To make this more structurally supportive, I added 2x4 braces at the two joists the posts would be under, between the bottom joist to the 2x4 that spanned the porch. |
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My brother Mike came over one Saturday morning to help me. We used a jack and some 4x4s to support the roof while we removed the old supports. The new posts raise the porch area approximately one inch. I don't think you can really tell how much the left side of that support curves down. Happily we didn't crack any ceiling plaster inside. |
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Ahhh... the new porch looks much better. I'm fairly pleased with the way everything turned out. I like that the porch entrance is now in the center. This allows people without keys to funnel off to the right and allow others to gain entry to the door. More importantly though, I can now put a bench or a swing on the right side. This project is still not done yet, as I still need to get the walkway replaced. The old sidewalk was cracked and sunken and in need of being replaced anyway. The black entry light near the door will also be replaced with a white light. More pictures to come when I get further along. |
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Here's an updated photo of the new porch with the sidewalk put in and mulch all the way around. The magnolia came out last year after it only flowered for about a week. It was just to hideous looking the rest of the year to tolerate. Obviously it hasn't gotten to green yet as there are no leaves on the trees. This photo is a bit shadowy because it was shot late in the day, but it looks pretty good and I'm quite pleased with it. |
