🛠I built a pretty fun porch.

This is a porch I built for the front of my own house in 2018. When we looked at the house, my wife and I both felt like it was missing a front porch, so it was one of the things on the top of our list when it came to upgrades. Stephanie can be a real pain in the ass on particular things around the house, but sometimes she trusts my skills enough to just leave me alone to do my thing. Once we agreed on a basic shape, she was happy to see my imagination was off and running as well as my circular saw.

I love the engineering behind timber framing joinery as well as the aesthetic look you get from a minimum of exposed fasteners. Timber framing is a method of joining large wooden posts and beams with no fasteners. I’ve been in love with this method since I was introduced to it on a large barn relocation project long ago.

On that project an old large barn was dismantled in Massachusetts and rebuilt in Eastern Pennsylvania. I was able to learn some large timber framing techniques mostly by looking at the old joints on the old posts and figuring out how to duplicate them with my modern power tools.

Nothing like the feeling of using a chain saw to aid in the process of material removal for massive hidden joints. I was asked to stay and do several months worth of free form finish work on this high end barn which culminated in very substantial and large timber frame staircase.

For this porch I used reclaimed lumber and old world timber framing techniques to join the posts and beams. As you can see, I take my own liberties to combine techniques from all aspects of joinery, including large dovetails and huge mortise and tenons. The result is beautifully satisfying piece of woodwork with solid joints that will last for years to come.

And for an added bonus, I am not done with this sweetheart just yet. I still have to fabricate and install a custom archway as well as angle brackets and a hanging light fixture, so more blog posts about this porch coming in the future.