Planning the Front Porch Restoration

When we first put an offer on the house, one of the things that really sold us was what we could do with the outside and in particular the front porch. It was in rough shape with a lattice fence and old posts of varying heights, which had led to a wonky roof. From the beginning we have had big dreams about what we could do with it. We just love sitting out there enjoying the view and it’s my new favourite place to blog.

When I look at what the house was like when we first moved in (even before the vines took over), I can’t believe how much we’ve done already. The plants (and weeds) have been neglected over the last five years and much of what we’re doing right now is trimming it all back.

Taking down the lattice, pulling down the vines and digging up the bigger weeds made a huge improvement to the front. It also gave us the chance to start planning out the porch restoration.

My parents found an old picture of the house from the local library and we could see that at one point it had just four main posts with a wide concrete step. We fell in love with the idea of making the house look like it did back then and restoring the front porch.

Garrett and I spent many an evening pouring through different porch designs, post styles and debating about railings. In the end we decided to keep it simple and go for four posts like these ones above (source). We liked the clean lines and the simple trim on the tops and bottoms, which fits with the Loyalist Georgian architecture of the house.

For the steps, we’re going for a wide, deep and low step – the kind you can sit on to have a tall glass of lemonade on a hot day! We were having a hard time getting the measurements just right, so I drove back to our old neighbourhood to snap a few pictures and take pictures of houses that we always loved. This one was the winner!

Next up was removing the old concrete step. I would have loved to have found a way to move it and reuse it, but unfortunately it was too big to safely move in one piece.

Garrett was happy to head out with a sledge hammer, pick axe (and safety goggles!) to start breaking it apart.

It took him about an hour and half to break it all away and we’ve saved the concrete and stone pieces to use elsewhere on the property.

Right now we’re leveling out the area for the steps, removing the old wooden platforms on the right side (see first pic up top) and finalizing the drawings. Fingers crossed we can get working on it in the next couple of weeks!

My job is to come to a decision with the paint colours, but it’s hard to chose with so many great colours! The chicks have been happy to offer their opinions.

(check out this cute video of them on Instagram. I wish they could stay this small forever!)