To help with conveying the image of an old farmhouse, we wanted to have a wrap around
porch. Deciding that we wanted one was the simple task, deciding which style we wanted
was the hard task.
Here are the porch posts viewed from the front of the house
Porches can be many different styles. You can have the all wood natural look, the all
wood painted look, the brick base with a wood floor, or the all brick and concrete look.
We went with the all wood look, although we haven't decided yet whether we are going to
paint the wood or not. We choose the all wood for the look and for flexiblity that it
gave us in being able to build it ourselves.
Here are the porch posts viewed from the side of the house
If you are going with the all wood, you are going to need posts buried into the ground
that will support the porch AND the porch roof. Do not underestimate how much these posts
will have to support. If it is a decent size porch, you could have 15-20 people
on the porch at one time. If you figure an average weight of about 150lbs, you are going
to have between 2250 and 3000 lbs resting on the posts. If it is during the winter time, you
could also have a roof load of snow. These are some of the reasons why you need to have
decent size posts.
Make sure you dig your post holes deep enough so that they are below the frost line. Also
if you have a lot of filldirt around the house like we did, try to dig down to the orginal ground
level. We ended up having our excavator dig the post holes for us with his backhoe as he was
able to dig a nice 2 foot wide hole all the way down to the original soil.
We set the posts into the holes and then raised them up to the level that we were going to
need them by attaching 2x4's at a 90 degree angle to the posts so that the 2x4's supported
the weight of the posts. We then poured cement under the posts to provide a solid foundation
for the posts to rest on.
Here are the porch roof trusses being set.
2x12's were then nailed going from post to post along the bottom where the floor "trusses" will
be attached to. The trusses were actually 2x8's going from the front of the house to the front
of the porch. The 2x12's in the front of the porch were actually 1/2 inch lower than the front
of the house to allow a small slope that will allow rain and snow to flow away from the house.
Once the lower beams were nailed to the posts, we were able to fill in the holes and remove
the 2x4's that were holding up the posts.
Next we nailed some more 2x12's to the top of the posts in order to support the roof
trusses which were nailed to the front of the house and the 2x12's at the top.
Here is the porch roof with plywood on it.
Once the roof trusses were applied, the roofing proccess was the same as what we had done on the
main roof. Plywood was put down first, then a 2x6 was put on across the front of the tails for
our fascia board. That was followed by tar paper on the plywood and drip edge, finally shingles
were put down.
Here is the completed porch