I can’t just drive to Lowe’s or Home Depot and buy the parts I need to finish this job. This creates many delays. Often it results in outright, dead-in-the-water work stoppages.

I found that even if you pay purported craftsmen to specially recreate items that aren’t found in the aisles of cavernous home-improvement big boxes, you can still be left unsatisfied.

Octagonal Porch Capitals. Primed But Not Forgotten

For example, the porch columns are octagonal. The old ones were perfectly made, with each of the eight surfaces exactly the same width.

They’re not items I could make with my own equipment. So I hired a sawmill to do the job. The ash posts came back octagonal. Unfortunately the cuts were far from precise. Some sides of the octagons were wider than others.

I had to go over each one with a power planer and attempt to make the too-narrow surfaces wider. Left to be tackled on many of the posts is the replacement of the similarly octagonal capitals and posts.still deciding what to do.

Sometimes, when decisions are too difficult or the solutions to costly, I just move to another part of this project that’s within my grasp. I guess that’s what’s happened with the porch capitals and bases. I’ve stared at them. I’ve looked online. I’ve considered hiring specialists or creating latex molds.

This could … no this should be the summer they finally get done. I’m moving them up the priority list. If they’re not done (and painted elaborately) by autumn well then I’ll just come back and erase this post.

Tags: porch posts