A Post About a Post

When I spilled the details about our long-term plans for the exterior of the house here, I mentioned that we were planning on bulking up the post that supports our front porch overhang.  Hence this post about our post.

Pre Post.

We just thought the proportion looked funny.  We had this cute octagon window happening on one side of our little porch along with the expanse of the rest of the east-facing part of our house and this puny, ugly support post on the other.  Things had gotten a little better since we painted last year, but we still longed for a way to balance the proportion and dress things up a little.

The top of the post (plus Steve measuring).

The bottom of the post.  Someone needs to mow those dandelions!

Steve used cedar because we knew it would withstand the abuse it'd get outside and because we wanted it to match the texture of the trim on other parts of the house- since eventually the post will be painted white like the rest of our exterior trim.  He opted to do mitered corners for a nice polished look.

Checking the fit.

Once Steve had all four pieces cut to size, he nailed them in.

Any excuse to use a nail gun.

At this point you can see how much better the proportion of the overhang looks with the post bulked up.

Steve's on a roll with the nail gun.

Once Steve was done with the hard parts, he turned things over to me to do the easy and tedious parts (being a linear-sequential person has its benefits).  My first job was to sand all sides of the post to make sure the corners met tightly and knock all of the splinters down so things were nice and smooth.  Since it's hard to use a palm sander and photograph the process at the same time, you get this photo instead.  I'm sorry.  But obviously not that sorry.

Super dork.  Yes that is sawdust in my hair.

After that I filled the nail holes and corners where the sides joined.  Note to all- mitered corners are super pretty and a total pain in the you-know-what to seal with caulk.  Seriously, it took me about four times as long to seal this post as it took Steve to bulk it up.  Our plan is to make the post look a little more finished by adding a foot and maybe a crown (similar to this), but I decided to go ahead and prime the post as is.  I figured it'd save me a little work after the fact and the high contrast would allow me to see if I needed to re-caulk any areas.

Primed.

Nevermind the still-naked planters down the north side of the house.  Don't you think the proportion looks better?  It added some much-needed balance.

Ohm.

Our next step will be finishing off the post.  Crossing our fingers we'll get it done before I go back to work full time!