Proceeding to Power

I was going to start the electrical for the porch after I finished some other updates, but the more things laid out the more structured it seemed to get some of these other updates done. The key is that I'm putting lights on the corners. That means I had to put a pork chop on there and attach the light boxes to the chop. Then I had to get the light boxes wired up before I could put the trim on the lookouts, there is no access to that space after it all gets sealed up, so I have to rough in the wiring before hanging the trim. Then paint everything before installing the fixtures. Might as well plan the outlets too, and I wanted to put a switched outlet up top - we like to hang icicle or christmas lights around the rim of these things, it creates a really cool effect.

Right pork chop

Left pork chop

The standard view

So now we begin the electrical rough-in by installing the boxes, then running wire to them with switched and always-on junction boxes in the attic space.

Ceiling fan boxes

light box

outlet on the left side of the porch

junction boxes, continuous on the left, switched on the right

Fan boxes are wired and I got some attic flooring put in as well

left light box is wired up

Here's the feed

On the other side of that porch exterior wall is my youngest daughter's bedroom. As you can tell, there is no insulation in that exterior wall, just like there is no insulation in any of our exterior walls before we renovate those rooms. So hers is next. I'm going to rip out all of that plaster, put in some electrical updates in there, so I wanted to run the porch electrical off of a new outlet that I was going to put in her room. Later I will bring in an electrician to add a new breaker for this circuit. So it starts inside and pokes outside to an outlet. Run up from there to a double switch, one to a switched outlet and the other to the corner lights. The fans and the side outlet are on continuous power.

So why did I have to get the corner lights wired up on the pork chops before painting?

Trim on the lookouts - now the wire to the pork chop is completely hidden

All that trim is done

I ran 1x4 trim around the bottom edge of the roof beams. On the front face, I'm going to hang cedar shake shingles and this board gives me the starting point, the trim on the lookouts is a clean line for the top of the cedar. But I don't want to paint the cedar, so this stuff all has to get painted first, and I have to paint the boxes before I can install the lights.

Here's a street view as well, to gauge the current curb appeal

Fits right in!