HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Rural Voice, 1993-10, Page 42Gothic houses didn't use shutters as
often. "I still like a house that has
shutters," he says.
Porches: Rutledge says he's really
pleased to sec the number of porches
that are being rebuilt or replaced in
western Ontario these days but often
that lack of knowledge about original
porches leads people to make
mistakes.
A porch is made up of several
elements, beginning with the bottom,
which generally has some kind of
enclosure or latticework or
decorative wood to keep animals out
from under the porch but still provide
air circulation to keep the porch floor
dried out.
Next comes the porch floor, then
the railings and posts. Above the
posts is a bcam that runs along the
top of the posts and is visible from
the front (a
mistake
modern porch
builders often
make is that
this bcam isn't
left visible).
Where the
beam and the
posts join there
is often a
decorative
bracket and
along the
•
bottom of the
beam is often
decorative
trim. Above
this is the
eaves and the
roof of the
porch. "You Porches often owe thei
need all those
parts. If one is missing, or if you
can't see it, then it's not in the style
of the house."
Besides the "invisible" beam,
another mistake people often make in
rebuilding porches is to put too much
overhang on the roof. Just because
the main house has a two -foot
overhang doesn't mean the porch
should have, he says. Usually the
overhang on the porch was much
smaller.
People often try to make their
replacement porches too fancy. Most
original porch railings didn't have
turned -spindle pickets but a simple
square spindle. The decoration was in
the posts and the brackets, he says,
not the pickets. Traditionally these
pickets and the bottom rail were
painted the same colour, different
than the accent colour used on the top
rail.
If you're looking for gingerbread
or bracket work for a rebuilt porch
and you don't have an example on
your own house, survey all the
original porches within about a five -
mile radius of your home. Find what
similar characteristics the porches in
your area shared.
There were very definite styles of
porches defined by small geographic
areas, he says, caused by the fact
individual planing mills created the
detail -work. There's a Goderich
porch that tends to be heavy and
overdone. The Brodhagen porch,
created by twin brothers working out
Classical or Regency.
Housing styles in western Ontario
tend not to be pure, however. While
the Maritimes and eastern Ontario
stuck to one style, by the time
western Ontario was seeing "big"
houses replacing the early log and
wooden houses, people were starting
to pick features from various styles.
You might end up with a Gothic
Italianate house or a Gothic farm
house with a little bit of Queen Anne,
Rutledge says.
You can research into how your
house originally looked by seeking
old photographs either from your
family archives, from neighbours'
collections, from the local historical
society or libraries and museums. A
professional can help you reconstruct
from these, even if they don't give
clear details. Rutledge recently
worked with a
photo that
showed just a
sliver of the
porch's post.
Colours:
Traditionally,
when most of
the older farm
homes were
built, there was
a limited range
of colours
available.
Luckily, most
paint companies
provide a
heritage line of
paints that
reproduces those
original primary
colours with
modern paint
quality. Generally, Rutledge says, the
darker the paint colour the better on
the exterior because the sun fades the
paint over time.
Most older houses used white and
one other colour in the trim. There
might be a three -colour scheme: the
brick one colour, then a trim colour
and an accent colour. There is,
however, the all -white house when
the siding and trim were all the same
colour. The roof would then be
another colour.
Avoid fashionable colours, he
advises, then chuckles because the
fashionable colours today are the
heritage colours that would normally
38 THE RURAL VOICE
r personality to local planing mills.
of the mill in that Perth County
village, tends to be light and airy.
There's a Perth County porch and a
Bruce County porch, among others.
"You shouldn't just pick a porch
out of a magazine because you like
it," he says. Certain styles of porches
go with certain styles of house. The
classic gothic farm house (with a
door in the middle of the front and a
window on each side and a dormer
above) has one kind of porch while a
a Victorian will have another. You
should try to identify the basic style
of your house be it Gothic, Ontario
Cottage Style, Italianate, Queen
Anne, Victorian, Edwardian,