As spring once again approaches, a look at one of last year’s NewOldHouse projects we chipped away at all summer and into the fall before the weather forced us to put it on pause.
The front porch was another NewOldHouse mystery, having been obviously reconstructed in the recent past with quick and dirty modern materials. Luckily, the original columns were intact, but much of the structure had been neglected for years.
Front Porch: Before.
Original porch columns.Sadly a little worse for wear.
Sanding down the paint layers revealed many interesting hues that previous owners had chosen.
Paint layer excavation. Yes, the whole house was once lavender…
We’d done a bit of investigating previously and found that the new porch had been simply built on top of the old one. Underneath, the older one had sunk in the front, and was in need of repair.
Old porch uneven? just put another one on top!
After ripping off the new wood, Leif went to work repairing the old porch underneath. The front corners were jacked up, rotten bits replaced, and facing added around the base of the columns to add structural support and protect them from the elements. The older (if not original) porch floor was mostly intact. Luckily the tongue and groove wood matches perfectly to the 1930s flooring inside the house and we had saved what we could from previous renovations. It was sealed with caulking and porch paint.
Side view of the porch on porch action. Side pieces removed to investigate structural supports.
Bottle jack being used to level the original porch floor with the new one partially removed.
Along with lots of garbage, we did find some hidden treasures.
A 1960s Pepsi bottle was hidden under the front porch.
Random porch treasures: glass stoppers and a ‘vintage’ toonie.
An antique jar lid with milk glass insert. Also found under the porch.
These Winnipeg Telegram newspaper scraps are from 1913 and had been stapled to the inside of the porch. They include a fragment of an article on non-militant suffragettes!
Reusing bits of wood as possible to repair the porch. Part of the roof has also been removed as there were a lot of damaged areas. Our old friend Chad the squirrel had also made a next up there.
Poor old roof was badly damaged and home to squirrels for many years.
Inspired by Leif’s Scandinavian roots, the new roof is slats of wood with a waterproof coating.
New roof on the porch gets treated with weather proof stain.
New roof, new neighbourhood cat.
Unbelievably, this antique wooden porch floor was mostly intact. I suppose in some ways it’s lucky for us the previous owner was so lazy.
These painted boards came from inside the house when we ripped up the hall floor. They are a perfect match!
The bigger gaps were filled with caulking and everything got many coats of porch paint to seal and protect it. Hopefully it will last another 100 years.
Next, the railings were reconstructed based on extant examples we’d seen and some book research. Victorian porch railings are often much lower, but ours are up to modern building codes so they can be used as a handrail. The solid paneling encloses the space and gives a sense of privacy. Thanks to old Google street view images, we discovered that it was still intact in 2009. As luck would have it, the porch rails had solid paneling just like we installed! The front railings use leftover balusters (the same ones used on the stairs inside). Most of the other wood used were pieces salvaged from other house projects, continuing our effort to re-use as much as possible. The handrail for the front steps is a chunk of the bannister that came with the house!
Google Street View from 2009 shows the original porch intact.
Love this bright teal someone once chose to paint the house. you can see here where the original railing once was.
Porch progress. Sealed floor and column bases, new handrail frames. Old stairs and handrail.
Meanwhile, the front fence got a makeover. The chainlink was ugly and also in bad shape. Leif decided to remove the panels and use the posts since they were already sunk into the ground a safe distance from any utility lines. Clever use of cedar fencing boards around them makes them look like solid wooden posts and gave us something to drill into. The full reveal later in this post!
The old chain link fence was pretty sad looking and not much of a fence. I attempted to pretty it up temporarily with painted doilies…
Part one of the new fence with room for the little tree.
As usual, while fixing one thing, other areas were also in need of some love.
This corner of the house needed some love, so the lower parts of the corner boards were removed, then replaced with new wood once the part underneath had been reinforced.
Front corner after.
Later in the fall, while reconstructing parts of the porch and the front door frame, I convinced Leif that we should replace the outside transom window above it, since it obviously was not meant to be there, and had been jammed into the space rather badly (another classic Slappy move). As it came out, we had a sneaking suspicion that it might have come from another part the house. We were right! You may recall that a bathroom window had been walled over many years ago. This was it! After some impromptu late night excavation and carpentry, it was returned to it’s original location. A victory for us in the restoration of this home!
All the brown paint and a window that looked wrong.
After the outside window was removed. much nicer already!
The window from the boarded up one on the left had been used above the front door for a while.
Privacy level: 0.
Hello world! Inside the bathroom looking out.
Window TLC in the shed before installation.
Rebuilding the window frame from scratch since the old one was long gone.
Late night carpentry to re-seal the wall.
A man and his bathroom window.
Temporary install to secure the house.
Next day: sanding and re-painting the frame.
The original frame was intact on the outside of the house, but falling apart, so Leif built a super beefy new one that holds the old window perfectly.
Our original thought was to have some nice stained glass for light with some privacy. After a trial run, we decided against it.
We replaced the front window with a proper transom style one from one of our fave antique places. The vintage 413 painted on the inside window can now be seen clearly.
Along with replacing the window, the Slappy style doorframe was rebuilt to something more like what might have been in 1897. Certainly much nicer than what was kluged in for the last while. I also started on covering more of the brown. The ceiling for sure needs more coats but is already much brighter, especially at night.
Back in Porch Land, the ugly brown theme continued on the outside of the house with nearly all surfaces. Using the Victorian multi-colour scheme, we will be making the subtle details of the architecture pop. The deep blue even on a small part of the house looks so nice. I’ll be so happy when all the ugly brown is replaced with nicer colours, and the wooden siding and trim are protected from the elements for the future.
The new colour scheme, although a bit more saturated, is close to hues popular in the 1890s. From our paint excavations, it looks like the first layer on this siding matches pretty closely with our creamy accent colour.
One corner looking more like it should.
We chose to use the leftover balusters (from the interior staircase) on the front railings so that it didn’t feel too closed in and also to add some interesting detail.
Current porch: New railings mostly complete, storm door needing proper stripping, lovely new blue wall. New stair railing made from the one we removed from the inside stairs.
Leif made a new mailbox by laminating pieces lath we had ripped out of the house. Once a part of the home’s hidden structure, it’s now a functional piece of art. We also changed up the numbers. the gold tone looks great against the blue!
Lovely new fence is much nicer to look at and 100% more functional than its predecessor. We did some creative cutting to accommodate the trees because trees are nice.
New front view greatly improved from a year ago. The chevron gate was inspired by the styles in Icelandic architecture.
Phew! So much work to get it to this point (structurally sound), but I am looking forward to more warm spring weather when I can continue making it look good too. For now I will have to try to be content deciding how this colour scheme will play out over the porch and the rest of the exterior of our NewOldHouse.
The neighbourhood cats really like our yard… Bonus inside view of the new fence.
