Replacing Rotten Parts on a Porch

In 2008 a woman came to the Design Review Committee with plans to add a porch to her old house.  It would have had one originally, but it was long gone.  Her proposed design was not appropriate.  My wife was on the committee and suggested to the woman that the new porch recently built across the street from us would be an appropriate design.  She took her suggestion.  The house missing the porch is at left with the new porch at the right. I made the brackets, posts, rails and hand turned 72 spindles for the porch. It is across the street from us, so I get to look at it every day.  Very satisfying.  The woman chose to go with the design of the porch on the right.  She chose the same contractor that made this porch to make hers.   My spindles were made from cypress and his were pine from Mr. Spindle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She did not keep them painted and caulked so they rotted away. Her stair newel posts, rails and 12 spindles were all rotten as seen below. For five other spindles on the porch I just replaced the bottoms and five I filled in with Bondo. I connect the old part of the spindle with the new with a one-inch dowel. I make the holes liberal so there is some movement available and then use epoxy as glue to fill in the gap. The lesson to learn here is that if you use pine on an outdoor porch you have to coat it with preservative, paint the end grain and caulk all joints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stair treads that were recently replaced were not wide enough to accept a cove under them. It is a pet peeve of mine when people don’t do it as the old timers always used a cove. I added an inch and a half to the width of the treads, planed them down to 1  1/8 inches and bullnosed three sides as dictated by the preservation ordinance. I make my own treated cove molding from scraps so it will last forever. The woman has limited means, so I donated the time and materials to make the replacement parts.  Very satisfying and I need projects to kill the time.  A contractor friend of mine installed all of my parts for $3000.

My new spindles, rails and newel posts are shown below. The cove is shown under the tread.  I prefer it to be the same color as the tread but the owner overruled me. It makes the tread look more massive.

Ten of the spindles at right I replaced the square bottom portion on or bondoed. They were painted with two coats and the bottom seem was caulked.  If the endgrain is exposed to water it rots in a hurry.  They now look great.  Feels good.

Several floorboards rotted away because she did not keep them painted.  The flooring is 1  1/8 thick which was very available ten years ago. I used it on our porches.  It is more like what the old timers used.  Current 3/4 stuff is too thin.   Now it is impossible to find.  The owner and I google for hours and found a place on the East coast that sells it but they would not ship it.  I milled in the tongue and groove from treated decking.  The red boards to the right are my new ones.  Porch flooring needs to be painted with porch and deck enamel on all sides before installation.  The second coat is applied after installation. A lot of people make the mistake of using white primer.  White House primer is not designed to have water set on top of it and if the top coat wears through a little bit the white really sticks out. The bullnosed treads are also visible here.