At long last, the Victorianna’s porch is becoming real. (To see how we got to this point, check out my posts about the porch modifications, porch progress, and bay window exteriors.)

I modified the porch to have a flat roof rather than a slanted one. In theory, this would have slipped neatly into a slot I left in the siding, with the crown molding at the tops of the bay windows providing support. Unfortunately, the bay window on the right is slightly too tall, which forces the porch out of the slot. This means the porch will mainly be held in place by the crown molding and posts it rests on.

I wanted to have the porch posts evenly spaced, but the off-center front door threw a wrench in that plan. Instead I decided to do a post in the center (where the two Victorianna kits bashed together meet), plus another one as far to the right of the door as the center post is to the left of it. The railing I’m using is a 1:12 spandrel that comes in a 10″ length, so it’s long enough for the ~7″ span between the left corner and center posts. (Many half scale railings I looked at only come in 5″ lengths.)

Some of the trim I’m using (like the spandrel railing) is from Victorian Dollhouse Wood Works on eBay and some is from Heritage Laserworks. I bought tons of trim for a frilly porch that looked great in my head, but some of those ideas didn’t look as great in practice.

For example: my initial idea was to do grillwork between the posts with brackets underneath, and a fancy arch at the doorway. It looked neat on the table.

On the house, though, I didn’t like how the grillwork got in the way of the bay window embellishments I recently added. Also, part of why I picked out the arch trim was because it was exactly the same height as the running trim + bracket on the opposite side of the post, but it would have made the space around the doorway much too wide.

So I simplified it, removing the grill and planning to use the same brackets on all of the porch posts.

Continue reading