100% original to the house, the porch is suspended 26 inches above grade on brick and stone piers. The piers support decorative steel beams which in turn support the eight-inch thick concrete and tile floor. In the open spaces between the piers sit three original, wooden lattice panels which block the space beneath the porch from intruders (such as raccoons, cats and errand neighborhood children) but permit airflow to prevent damp, rot and mold build up.
Interestingly, the panels were not intended to be removable, as other panels are. Most others are screwed in place to a second wood frame or other supports. The ones on our house sit within masonry slots: brick on one side, stone on the other, cement floor on top and earth below. Additionally, there were wedges driven in behind the panels to prevent movement back and forth within the slot. the only way these could have been placed within the confines of the porch piers was to slot them in before et floor was constructed.
The Challenge
When we started work on the porch, scraping and repainting the panels was, of course, on my list. I didn't realize at that time that the bottom rail of the framed panels was fully covered with soil and almost fully rotted away. We dug out about 8 inches of soil, reestablishing the original soil level of the yard around the porch, and exposed the full lattice panel. Getting them out of the brick and stone slots was far more troublesome.
I want the panels to be removable in the future, since electric and water lines run under the porch. To maintain the proportions of the panels, and ensure they look as original as possible, I ended up carefully detaching the tenoned frames and lattice strips along the joints so I could rebuild them to be a little shorter and be able to remove them in the future.
Boy is the Space Under the Porch a Mess
After the panels were removed we had an opportunity to clean up under the porch. Thankfully, the yard drains well so the porch was (cough) super (cough cough) dry (cough) and soooo dusty. Crazy dry in fact. We found a lot of leaves that blew through the lattice openings over the years, along with rocks that must have been thrown there during the building of the house. One was a cut stone that must not have been needed form building the house. Dust and tree and vine roots were everywhere and needed to be cleared out as much as possible. We also made a few "discoveries" of an old 13 foot ladder, a bunch of original window screens, some old gasoline and oil tins, and a strange contraption the size of a coffee table with folding legs that looks home-made. I think it was supposed to give the workers building the house a small platform to reach higher things. These treasures are now in the garage awaiting clean up and reuse somewhere.
Cleaning, Scraping, Priming and Painting
Once the opening and space behind the panels was cleaned up we turned to upgrading the panels. I set up a workstation in the driveway and started vacuuming thousands of spider egg sacks and cob webs off the panels (yuk). Next came scraping and sanding - no need for details on that. and finally rebuilding. This was a little more difficult that I anticipated since I had to maintain the space between the lattice strips as well as the thickness of the wood frame, while reducing the size by just a couple of inches. I hesitated to disassemble and rebuild the frames, but in the end that was the smartest and fastest way to re do them. I adjusted the openings by a fraction of an inch, sliding the lattice strips a bit to one side till I accumulated the 2 inches of space I needed. Then I was able to reattach the end frame timber.
In all cases, the bottom framing member needed to be replaced in full. The frames originally were mortice and tenoned together, something I just don't have tools for, so I opted to use metal brackets to attach the new bottom to the sides. Im ok with that since they appear and are nearly as durable as the originals.
Right before I installed them I stapled screen fabric to the backside so no more leaves or other small stuff would blow behind them. This also better hides the remaining rocks and dirt under the porch, but still lets in plenty of air to keep it dry.
Finally
In the end I am really pleased with the cleaned and reinstalled panels. They are removable, look great and no longer do I have to worry about rotten wood.
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