With the end of the season fast approaching, it’s time for our last push for any exterior work.  Our goal for the year was to address the porch and either finish, or come close to finishing, exterior painting of the house.  This includes renting a bucket truck again for scraping and painting needed in the dormer above the front bay windows but that’s still to do and we’ll catch that on another post. 

As for the porch, when looking at it with the rounded seating area, the columns and capitals even in their deteriorated state one could easily tell how nice it once was and what it was meant to be. 

Now that the main porch area was painted, it was time to catch the rest of the porch up with the rest of the front; this meant the columns. 

By the time we purchased the home, several columns had fallen from rot and many of the few remaining were barely hanging on, not doing much by providing homes for woodpeckers and storage for squirrels.  Sorry our furry friends but time to move on.  

Since we’ve been here, to secure the porch we’ve treated it like a patient and triaged it, moving to the front of the line items which more urgently needed our attention. The porch roof had been propped up with jack posts and debris removed early on.  That’s been pretty much the extent of it until recently when we began to truly assess it and begin the restoration of this space.    

The last several weeks, Paul has been working on the support beams and headers for the roof of the porch by opening up the front fascia boards and exposing it all.   He cleared bird nests and squirrel nuts, inspected and where needed, new support beams were slid into place with new fascia boards added back to seal it in.

A fresh coat of paint and we’re ready!

It was time to order our first new column and capital.  It would be up to just the two of us to remove the old one and put up the new one.  Normally in these cases, you have a whole crew working and the entire porch is supported and raised ever so slightly and ALL old columns removed at the same time with ALL new columns being placed into position together.  Then the entire porch is lowered back down in one “hold your breath” moment.  With that said, as usual the typical method does not apply to us, lol.

Not only because this was the first time we’ve ordered from this company (would it look right?  would it support correctly, how do we do it?), and we ordered only one column but also because there were just the two of us.

Because we did still have a few columns standing, the plan is each would need to be removed and examined and if possible cleaned up and reused.  Since they all have to come down for this process, we decided to start at the back of the porch and work our way around. 

Paul took some measurements and…

…using jack posts placed on either side of the old column

…and slowly raising each post (holding my breathe as I did) and turning a few turns on one jack post, then going to the other, turning it a few times until ….creaks and groans began to sound on the old porch. 

After only a few minutes of this, the old column had clearance and was free!

Yay! I think, lol. Well….we’re all in now! 

We took a moment to examine the old column and after removing all of what we found inside (a small section of concrete and is that fabric? Yes!! umm...why?) unfortunately the first column was indeed a loss.  There was simply too much damage to the integrity to be trusted.  In the trash!

As for installing the new column, the first order was Paul had to attach new support boards where the porch would rest onto the column. 

Using a plumb bob line, we found where center should be for the support and did our calculations.  Unfortunately, columns aren’t made to order therefore you have to order them by standard sizes and cut to the needed height.  Cutting these things always makes me nervous (we had to do it for the kitchen columns for those who recall).

Paul made the cuts, got it clean and level and ready to install.   Placing the base on the column, we added the capital at the top and slowly but surely brought up the column.  

After a few nail-biting moments, adjustments were made to bring it into the EXACT position, jack posts were slowly lowered (again, a few turns on each side at a time, creaks and groans again on the porch) and finally the porch was fully back down, resting on the new column.  exhale!!

This is pretty much how it was!

Well, maybe not exactly like this, but that’s what it felt like to me. Lol. 

You can’t see the new column very well from the street but it’s there and it’s up, straight, plum and strong.   And we now know we can do this!  Suffice it to say, we’ll be ordering more columns and working our way around soon.

Actual photos:

And just think only 6 more to go!    :-/     lol

Another thing I wanted to mention before I end the post was an update to the entry way.  You may remember we ultimately decided against the damask light pearl color wallpaper we JUST hung.  Lol.  It was beautiful but very over powering for the space and not the direction we really wanted.  Quick refresher photo:

Just as with the kitchen and other areas of the house, as we come up with an idea, walk around the space a bit, LIVE in it, sometimes the feel changes. This wasn’t the right direction for the house. It just wasn’t.

With the walls now clear, we decided instead to approach it with more of a classic look. Shadow trim boxes were added on the now bare walls and since we were looking at slightly bumpy plaster walls, we decided to go with it!  I added even more texture to the walls but only on areas outside of the shadow trim. I made the inside areas as smooth as possible for what would come next.

We painted the outside areas of the shadow trim the same color as the back portion of the hallway to align those two spaces and a brilliant white for the shadow trim.

Our idea was this: similar to what we did in the drawing room, could we take a piece of artwork that had been made into wallpaper and use it inside the spaces?  

After searching a bit, we found several places that made this kind of wallpaper with many styles and options.  We decided to go with a feel that was now not only reflected in the ball room/parlor with its columns but after working on the porch and being further inspired with its columns, going with a neoclassical style.  I already had a few Roman reliefs already as artwork and once we put those up, it made sense.  We ordered one piece to try and put it in the first square.  It’s a grand gesture but it is beautiful and we think this fits this home better.

For the back corner, we have a simple landscape we will try.  It will be in the same tones (sort of water color, muted tones).  We’ll be sure to post pics once that section is done.

And for those taking notes at home, another benefit of doing wallpaper in “picture frames,” no artwork needed on that wall.  Done!  😊

Now on to the next area. Hmm…what can we do to the scary hallway?

We have improved it significantly since this photo, but you know us…

We can do better…!