Porch Rebuilding

The first restoration project we took on at the house was the front porch. Openings in the roof in multiple areas had caused water damage beyond repair to the roof and floor structure. The home has a full basement that runs even under the extents of the front porch. Fortunately this foundation was still in wonderful shape.

At nearly 1000 square feet it was no small job and we felt it was in the project’s best interest to hire professionals. Johnson & Galyon Homes took on the challenge. Our primary goal was to rebuilt the porch back as historically accurately as possible. It was important to us to reuse the original columns as long as the damage was minimal. Once the porch was demoed and the columns inspected we found that the water damage was limited to the base. Each column had a varying degree of damage and required a high level of craftsmanship to match the radius of each tapered column. The original columns were solid wood from a single tree that had been hollowed out on the interior and tapered on the exterior. Our carpenter said it was a very rare technique, one that allowed the column to breath and the cracks occur on the inside instead of the finished exterior face.