Porch Progress, Now with More Columns

Here we go!

The start of some columns - a fail

Walls and columns

The right size boards, finally, for the columns

starting to get some primer on the walls too

Walls are painted, caps are on, and the first column is finished

Got the front wall up and finished off too

Side wall is all stretched out too, and capped

The inside is painted out too

I got the tapered columns done

Now with more taper

So cool to see it all come together

So the columns. I started out with 1x8's because the main support posts are 6x6's and I thought (mistakenly) that cutting a 1x8 down to a 1x6 size on one end would give me the taper I was after. Then, I had some 1x10's to cover the edges of the 1x8's, tapering to the new width. Turns out, when you start with a 13" base you need something wider than 7.25" to cover the base. Since I already had the 1x10's on hand, I got to taperin' and put the other sides up.

I pulled off those 1x8's and used them as trim boards on the little test roof. Then had to go buy some 1x12's to fill in the long sides. I started with 10' boards and cut them down to the right length. Needed 3 of them, one for each column. Each side of the column was less than 5' long so I could get both sides out of one 10' long board. The 1x10's were almost wide enough to cover the gap at the base, so there was enough room there for the 1x12's to fill in.

So I cut the 1x10's to length first, then centered the 6x6 width on one end. Cut from those marks back to the corners to create the tapered look. For the final finish, cut an angle into the edges to make them fit exactly in the space inside of the molding. Then cut the 1x12's to the outside width of the other boards to form the complete taper.

Kelley painted the walls one day when I was at work. One coat of primer and two coats of paint, over a few days. It was really cool to come home to some dark walls. Spot on!! I put the caps on the knee walls that night. The caps were already painted so it was an easy time with the framing nailer.

The finished look for both the handrail walls and the tapered columns is amazing. I am so happy with how they both turned out!