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| Original support posts were retrieved from the front of the house when this back porch was rebuilt. Below is a photo of what the area looked like before the Chapmans did their work. |
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Note: Bill and Gay Chapman have purchased Bill's ancestral home, Enon Hall, a four-acre estate near the Chesapeake Bay in Lancaster County, Virginia. Since 1999, Bill has kept a careful journal or his purchase and restoration of Enon Hall. This story is built from journal excerpts on discovering and rebuilding a back porch.
June 2000: The dream
Once all of the shingles were off and bagged I turned my attention to the outside walls of the shed addition. (See photo above.) This addition started its life as a screened porch that was later closed in, using any piece of wood that happened to be lying around. I removed the screen frames and Gay came out to help me wrestle down the three louvered windows.
By 3:30 in the afternoon I was covered with grime from the dirty process. I stood in the middle of the destruction gulping Gatorade and looking around when it hit me. "Holy cow! This is the front porch!" There in front of me were the same 4 tapered posts that are so clearly visible in photos of Enon Hall from the early 1900s! Only then, they supported the front porch!
So this shed addition didn't start life as a screened porch...it actually started life as a simple open porch...and it actually started that life on the front of the house! From what I can tell from photos, it probably was torn off of the front and rebuilt on the back sometime in the 1930s. Standing out in the back yard I could see the true effect of what I had accomplished today. The back of the house, always its scariest side, looked 500% better. The porch is charming and Gay and I decided immediately that we would have to keep it!
June 2000: The reality
But, of course, it's not all that easy. The floor is rotted beyond repair and will need to be totally replaced. Meanwhile, the roof needs to be supported on braces so that this work can be done. But we're anxious to tackle this project in order to preserve this porch.
May 12-13, 2001: Tearing down
On Saturday, my brother and I tore down the concrete block chimney by the old back porch to make way for the construction of a new porch floor. The top three-quarters of the chimney came down easily with just a rope tied high and the two of us pulling. Then I easily broke up the rest with a sledge hammer.
Once the chimney was down, we started framing the new porch floor with salt-treated lumber. Used joist hangers for the first time. Once we got the hang of them they really sped the job and made nailing easier.
May 20, 2001: Building up
Spent the day priming the bottoms, sides, and ends of about 80 tongue and groove floorboards for the porch. Slow, boring work; but hopefully it will help to deter rot for years to come.
May 28, 2001: Progress and setbacks
Spent a long weekend at Enon Hall trying to work on the porch between torrential rain showers. On Friday my brother and I used a floor nailer to install the tongue and groove pine flooring. Here's a tip: It's easy to not notice that the nailer has run out of nails. Even when empty, it leaves a divot in the tongue that looks like a nicely sunk nail head. Turns out we missed several boards and when a downpour came that night...well, the picture below shows the unpleasant surprise I found Saturday morning.
Continued to pour all Saturday. Was able to replace the buckled boards on Sunday, install the fascia, and get everything primed. At 2:30 the next morning I was up throwing drop clothes over everything as yet another thunderstorm rolled through.
June 3, 2001: Ready for sitting
Put another coat of floor enamel on the porch floor. Then reinstalled two of the original solid tapered posts. We put the remaining posts in place on the porch and I started the trim work. Gay got me an early Father's Day present with these two great rockers! We really love this porch already. So nice to open the door and be able to step out on "something." And also great to see the old posts back in place.
Note: The Old House Web has been following the restoration of Enon Hall. For more stories in this series, follow this link. And if you check onto the Enon Hall Web site, you'll see that neither Bill nor Gay (or even young William) Chapman have spent much time sitting and rocking on their porch. Below is a picture of the front of the house, sporting its new yellow color, chosen after research showed that the house had been painted yellow long ago.
