Summer Project: Screened-In Porch. Part 1.

West side of house during construction in 1980.

West side of house during construction in 1980.

This past summer’s project was to build a screened- in porch over the existing deck on the west face of our house, which covers the entrance door to the basement shop. The west side takes the hot afternoon sun throughout the summer and the heavy winds and weather. When it rains, the windows have to be closed, not great on hot, muggy rainy days.

Back in the day!

Back in the day!

In an earlier post I wrote about working the rough sawn cedar timbers with hand tools (“Hand tools with rough cut lumber”). This post will demonstrate more techniques about using rough sawn material and how to make new milled material fit with it.

The first order of business was to thin the arbor vitae planted 27 years ago at the edge of the driveway in front of the deck, now nearing 30 feet in height.

Arbor Vitae

The trees grew as clumps and I left one per clump. What got taken out may end up as deck railing. After replacing the treated support posts and beefing up the joists and beams, a new cedar deck (eventually painted) went down, aluminum screening having been stapled over the joists first.

R S New Deck

The old oak deck boards are now feeding our woodstove.

R S Burning old deck boards

The post material consisted of 14’ long cedar 6” x 6”. I ripped some in half to provide 3” thick pieces for the half posts against the house, the door jambs, and the mid-span posts above the sills.

Circular saw, band saw, planer.

Circular saw, band saw, planer.

6" x 6" and 3" x 6" Cedar.

6″ x 6″ and 3″ x 6″ Cedar.

Door jambs showing band saw and scrub plane marks.

Door jambs showing band saw and scrub plane marks.

Each post was tenoned into a mortice in the treated sills and further anchored beneath with timberlock hardware.

R S Mortices for posts

The area on the sills where each post landed was hand planed flat and level. With the posts braced and plumb I could establish a level top line. (The sacrificial flakeboard panels remained on the deck throughout construction).

R S Bracing the Posts

There is a fair amount of irregularity in this type of building situation: the treated joists have been out in the weather for thirty years and the top edges aren’t all lying in a perfect plane, the rough sawn material used for studs in the wall framing is not uniform in width and thickness. You have to pick your battles and decide what you can allow to be funky and what you want to be spot-on. My focus was on getting the Spanish Cedar sills nice and straight, scribing their ends to press tightly against the rough inner faces of the posts, jointing the mid-span posts to look neat and square to the sills, making, fitting, and hanging the screen doors and pass-through door to the house. The overriding skill to have: scribing.

This vertical spacer jig was an invaluable aid.

R S Stud and Sill Jig 1

It positioned the studs with the correct setback for the siding (no pencil marks to try to follow) and provided a platform to lay the horizontal pieces in place for scribing between the posts.

R S Stud and sill Jig 2

I prefer to work with knife lines taken from the actual pieces rather than tape and pencil and these jigs allowed me, working alone, to do so.

R S Stud and sill Jig 3

The horizontal 2” x 4” in this picture shows what a square end against the post looks like, as well has how much the width of the rough cut pieces can vary.

R S Scribing 1

To scribe the sills I used cardboard templates.

R S Scribing 2

A long edge of the sill would lay on the jig and butt against the post, a card brought alongside, and the shape of the post transferred to the cardboard.

R S Scribing 3

A mark on the edge of the sill would either be a longer or shorter point, depending on its slope away from square.

R S Scribing 4

Once the scribed profile on the template was cut away with a mat knife it was knifed on the board and sawed with a jig saw.

R S Scribing 5

R S Scribing 6

The mid span posts had shallow shoulders and were fastened with angle screws from below.

R S Housed post on sill

R S Housed post on sill 2

R S Housed post on sill 3

By mid summer the roof was done and the framing intact, waiting for screens and doors to be made.

R S South doorway

My friend Michael Ward from Peach Pie came up to musically christen the room. We had a great time jamming on some cool tunes in the new room on the (now) shady end of the house.

R S Michael musically christens porch

1 comment to Summer Project: Screened-In Porch. Part 1.

  • Jane

    Hey that is looking good my friends. Having Micheal wash it with dulcide tones will make all right with the gods of carpentry ,although Tico we know you know him personally.
    I hope you all are having wonderful Christmas -New Years Happiness and lots of good will to all.

    Much Love from Danny and Me!!!

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