Wally’s Workshop

When you think about summer memories, many of us will think about clear skied, neverending summer days spent with those you love spending time with on the front porch – drinking ice cold tea and letting the world go by. We all need to hold tight to our memories, and those parts in our history that are very important to us; for many Americans, that includes massive front porch with its friendly staircase, well loved railing and battered carved balusters and newel posts.

Certain architectural home design types would be nothing without the company of a front porch – Arts and Crafts, Georgian, the traditional wood clad farm house and yes, even, the grand Victorian are just a few of the most popular.

A porch must be big enough for at least a small group to gather on – that is the basic definition. However, in America a front porch is typically large enough for outdoor furniture, a porch swing and many potted plants. Some are front and center under the main entrance, others span the whole front of the house, and many wrap around 3 or 4 sides of the home.

It doesn’t really matter the design style or what year it was built, a front porch has many very similar design and construction components. Any porch is made of up 4 main components:

1.    Newel Posts – Box newels, over the post newels, and ornate newels. There are many different types of newel posts available if you are remodeling wooden balusters on your current porch or building a new one. Maple and oak newel posts are well liked because of the wood’s beauty and durability.

2.    Balusters – The balustrade are often made of quality woods, but recently have been replaced with cast iron or tempered glass. Solid wood porch balusters still remain popular as they give that warm, familiar feel and can be very cost effective. A cast iron baluster in an ornamental pattern can be visually stunning on a modern residential property.

3.    Railings – Top and bottom banisters are often made of wood. These are the parts of your porch that generally take the most ‘human’ abuse. You will touch the railings, hang plants from them and paint the railings. Visitors to your home will lean into the railing and your children will sit on top of them. Because of this need to be ultra strong and long lasting to ensure your porch lasts for decades.

4.    Floor or Base – Basically the component of your porch that gets the most wear and tear, there are many new to the market options for a porch floor. character home porches have wood or concrete floors and both of these options are still available today. There are also other new materials on the market such as non slip exterior granite that would also be aesthetically pleasing and durable.

Although not listed in the list of four (4) above, stairs would be a close fifth. Not all porches, particularly if the porch is built at ground level or on a upper floor off a master bedroom, for example, will not have stairs. Otherwise, many traditional porches that lead to the front door of a residential property do include a set of stairs.
Although the front porch did lose popularity in house architecture after World War 2, it is experiencing a marked comeback. Maybe this is because the American people want to return to a simpler era when it was acceptable to take time for you andn your loved ones without having to take off to our work. maybe the front porch represents a stronger family unit when families did things together – an era before video game machines, personal computers and PDA’s and iPhones.

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