Deconstructing the Porch

One of the most beautiful architectural features on our home used to be the front porch.  Over the years it had degraded, rotted, and rusted out, so that only a ghost of its former self remained.  We didn’t realize what a sad remnant the front porch had become until one of the sisters who grew up in the house gave us an old photograph to copy.  We were immediately excited by what we saw, and knew beyond a doubt that the porch had to be returned to its original state.  After the appropriate applications to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and approval from the local Commission for Architectural Review, we finally got the go-ahead for the project.

It was clear was that there were a lot of missing cast iron pieces.  They were originally cast at Tredegar, a Richmond foundry, and similar lacy ironwork can be seen on other such porches in the South.  As chance would have it, the beginning of our cache of recovered ironwork started in our own back yard, as Tom discovered a few buried posts while tearing out some weedy volunteers.      

The remainder of the ironwork was painstakingly gathered together piece by piece.  At salvage yards from Richmond to Greensboro, we were like crows on carrion as we studiously scoured the bones of old porch remnants, building parts and random debris .  We made repeated stops at the most active salvage establishments, to see if anything new had been turned in.  We became familiar ghosts haunting the back lots of these disorganized jumbles of disembodied building parts, calling back and forth to one another whenever we found a pile that looked like it could yield what we were seeking.

A few local auctions yielded the remainder of our stash, as we bid on lots consisting of multiple random bits of metal in order to gain the single piece we desired.  In the end, after a few years of seeking, we collected enough of the metal work to complete the framework of the new porch.

Our next step was to enlist a draftsman to draw up the plans for our first big construction job on the house.  The detailed plans were completed, and based on those plans we started collecting bids.  A contractor named Doug came in with the best proposal, and we hired him to start demolition work right away.  His cost estimate was a little front-loaded, with a much higher cost on the demolition than the others, but he made up for it with a great price on the reconstruction.  We now know what a red flag that is.  True to his word, the demolition went as smoothly as planned, we paid him for that phase, and he promptly disappeared.  He had never actually intended to build the porch, and was well overcompensated for his demo work.  Lesson learned, we added it to our life’s list and moved on.

I’ll explain how the house went from white to red in another post…notice the “ghost” of the old porch

On our next set of bids, we only looked at long-established contracting firms.  That meant a higher price right out of the gate, but we hoped to protect ourselves from scammers like Doug.  We eventually hired a long-time Danville firm, The Daniel Group. 
 
In the meantime, we gathered all of our assembled ironwork together and brought it to a local welder to be sandblasted.  We called him “Iron Guy” because the ever-present layer of dirt on his skin rendered him the color of metal, and he was as big as a grizzly bear and easily as strong.  He would take large sections of rail that Tom and I would have to lift together and could pick them up with ease, twirl them around to inspect every angle, and put them down again with one hand.  He was a mountain of a man.  He got to work and blasted through multiple layers of paint and rust to get to the bare metal of the collected pieces of old iron.  They gleamed in their new layer of bright black paint, the details as crisp and sharp as when they were first cast. 
Toward the end of the job, however, the pieces started coming out of the shop much more slowly, and eventually stopped altogether, so we drove over to investigate.  Iron Man was not in his workshop, but answered the bell when we rang at his house, next-door.  He had been busy working on his computer inside, and appeared annoyed at the interruption, until he remembered that Tom was a lawyer.  He asked for some advice, and told us about this incredible opportunity he had come across which would make him much more money than his welding shop ever had. 
 
He told us about someone who had contacted him; a bureaucrat from Nigeria who had siphoned off funds from his government and needed someone in the U.S. with a bank account to help him transfer the money overseas.  Iron Man explained that he would be getting a 10 percent cut of a 5 Million dollar pot of money!  He had already sent over some money and small gifts which were to go toward a bribe for a key individual involved, and now had to send a cashier’s check for $5,000 to pay the lawyers fees.  He wanted to know how best to go about doing that, so as not to arouse any one’s suspicions. 
 
When Tom told him as diplomatically as possible that it was a scam, the most unexpected reaction occurred.  Anger — directed toward US!  This mountain of a man was suddenly red in the face and wildly gesticulating, accusing us of trying to go behind his back to steal his opportunity.  Bewildered, we retreated to our car and promptly left.  The remainder of our old cast-iron pieces were dropped off at our house the next day, and we had to find another shop to finish the sandblasting job.  I wondered what had became of Iron Guy and his Nigerian treasure whenever I drove by his shop.  About six months later, the shop was empty and “for sale.”  My guess is that he moved to the Caribbean with his cut of the loot.
 

My next quest was for slate for the roof.  Since the slate on the main roof of the house was over 100 years old, it would look incongruous for the porch to have new slate, so I asked around the neighborhood to see if anyone knew of a place where I could buy re-claimed slate.  Our usual salvage yards didn’t have any in stock, and the porch was on The Daniel Group’s schedule, expected to be completed in just four weeks.  The answer came from next door.  I was told that Sarah had a stash in her garage.  She and our local Historian (and general font of information, preservation leader, archivist, treasure hunter and good friend), Gary had dug it out of a local dump.  The slate had come from the old Post Office building when it had been demolished many decades ago.  I have it on good authority that the gigantic terra-cotta eagle that once graced that edifice now resides in a front yard in Eden North Carolina.

I wandered next-door to investigate and met Sarah in here usual place, working in her vibrant flower garden out back.  We talked plants for a little while, admiring the variety of irises that were just beginning to bloom, then I inquired about purchasing a quantity of slate if she could spare some.  I suddenly had her complete attention, and the weed she had just pulled fell from her hand.  “Sweetie,” she said, pulling off her gardening gloves excitedly, “this is your lucky day.”  Her husband Max had just bought a new Cadillac, and had declared that if all that slate was not out of the garage by the end of the weekend, he would arrange to have it all hauled back to the dump.  It was mine for free if I could move it out today.  Yessss!  I surveyed the sprawling cache of slate that completely filled the two-car garage, which was, in fact, the entire ground floor of the old carriage house behind this Victorian mansion.  This was enough slate for many porch roofs.
 

Heading up Main street one block, I crossed the street and entered a petite Victorian Queen Anne house with a sign on the porch identifying it as “Hope Harbor.”  This was a home established for substance abuse recovery by a local religious group.  They housed many able-bodied men who earned their keep at the home by working odd jobs.  I located the supervisor who eagerly filled out the paperwork and pointed me to two burly men on rockers on the front porch.  With their help and a couple of hand trucks, we had the slate transferred to a dry place underneath our house, and Max beamed as he rolled his new Cadillac into the now-empty garage.  Tom and I beamed as we surveyed the rows of stacked slate now inhabiting our crawl space. 

 

Within a week, construction began on the new porch.  We decided that this version would have to outlast us, as we determined never to have to do this again.  Thus, steel and concrete were the materials of choice.  The base went in easily enough, though the brick work beneath the columns was clearly amateurish at best.  They tried again, but we pulled it out and re-did it ourselves in the end.

We were able to match the concrete color of the existing base of the house with a color in their sample book, Kahlua (sounds good to me!) and the day finally came for the concrete to be poured.  The excitement of bringing back something that had been lost for so long was such a great feeling.  We were turning back the hands of time.  Some delays prevented the Daniel Group from actually pouring that day, and then an early snow presented.  The concrete forms were in place and waiting, and finally a clear day presented itself.  The slurry of cement poured and settled into its new home. 

As the concrete cured, the border surfaces, which would not be covered in tile, were rubbed smooth.

I dutifully sprayed down the porch daily with water to help the concrete cure, but reported to Tom, who was hard at work back in D.C., that they still had not removed the forms.  We were both concerned that the forms, if left on too long, would stick to the front surface and destroy the smooth finish that was required.  After many phone calls back and forth to The Daniel Group, a crew finally came along and removed the forms.  Alas, the cavernous voids in the concrete at the face could not be ignored.  Depressed and angry, I awaited Tom’s arrival on the train the following day, while The Daniel Group and the concrete company pointed fingers at each other about who was responsible for vibrating the cement after the pour.  The situation only got worse when my “human level” of a husband saw the pour firsthand, and it was ultimately determined that the surface of the porch had not been “laser leveled” as stipulated by the contract, but in fact had never been touched with a level at all.  A significant hump rising toward the center could be seen when a level was actually applied to the surface.
 

The truly amazing part about the fiasco is the concept that humans have been working with concrete since before the Romans built the Pantheon.  The remaining neighborhood porches that were built in the 1880s had poured concrete that was still smooth and solid, level and unbroken over 100 years later.  How we have devolved, all of these centuries later, into a society which can no longer properly handle the most ancient and basic building material, bodes poorly for our future.  What good are great minds and lofty ideas if they don’t have a solid place in which to reside.  Without a skilled labor force, a community, a society, cannot build a future.  I have the utmost respect for the person who works with his hands, does excellent work and takes pride in that work.  Those rough hands will have something concrete to show for their time on this earth, something useful, perhaps even beautiful, that they have left behind.  Pun intended, of course.

 

The Daniel Group promised to fix the problem.  They cut out and re-poured the cavernous outer section of the base and had talked about jackhammering out the center and re-pouring that as well.  In the end, however, they simply ground it down a few inches and added a layer of self-leveling cement.  I still can’t understand what it is about Danville that contractors are somehow allergic to levels and expect their materials to do the leveling job for them.  The self-leveling cement de-laminated in a matter of weeks, and they finally admitted defeat.  They were out there with a jackhammer a few months later, and properly re-poured our porch base.  This time someone actually used a level.

 

By now, we were way outside of the time scheduled for our porch construction, The Daniel Group explained.  They had other jobs scheduled that would now be delayed if they continued work on ours.  Our job would now be completed sporadically, fit in between jobs, so as not to get any of their larger projects off schedule.  It was clear that they now viewed us as a money-losing project, and it was also clear that their “B” team would be working with us from that day forward.  I never recall seeing a project manager at our site voluntarily after that day.  They would show up briefly after we would call to complain when something was being done incorrectly, though.  The new crew of workers began spitting their tobacco in my toilet when using the bathroom, with an approximately 50% “miss” rate until I finally banned them from the inside of the house altogether.

 

Little by little, the cast iron framework of the porch began to take shape and the framing for the roof was in place.  I spent most of one evening and into the late night that night staining all of the porch ceiling lumber when the guys they sent to do the work didn’t show.  I knew that if the roof construction crew showed up the following day and the staining hadn’t been done, I would lose another month before they would have a spare day to come by again.  Eventually the rubber roofing system was installed, and it was beginning to more resemble a porch.

 

Tom and I stood across the street on the granite steps of the church to admire the progress of our new porch one morning.  Tea mugs steaming in our cold hands, sweatshirt hoods up over our heads, we admired and pointed out all of the beautiful details.  Suddenly the “big picture” caught my eye, and I realized that Tom had been silent for the last few minutes while I had been talking.  “Is it….is it…ummm…straight?” I whispered doubtfully.  It seemed to me that the porch columns all leaned to the left.  His lips were pursed tightly and his attention riveted on what he had already concluded.  As we stood there in silence and disbelief, a hunched figure made her way up the sidewalk in front of the house.  The grey hair poking out from under the round tweed hat was tightly curled, and she walked slowly, with some effort.  She stopped in front of the house, seeming to catch her breath, one mittened hand resting on the front entry column.  She looked at the new porch, then over to us, and back to the porch again, surveying it carefully.  As she straightened to resume her walk, her high-pitched Southern voice carried over to us as she loudly proclaimed “Yup, it’s crooked!” and continued on without looking back.

 

We initially got an argument from The Daniel Group, that it was, in fact, the house that was crooked and the porch that was straight, but since levels don’t lie, our argument was the stronger one.  As we got pushed further and further off their schedule, the “C” team was now called in to finish the job.  As the project manager’s site visits became practically nonexistent, we ended up supervising the remainder of the construction as the porch columns were re-set.

 

As the final inspection approached, we eagerly awaited the day that we could cease all communication and contact with The Daniel Group.  The phone call came — our inspection had failed.  The roof trusses had been constructed with a critical stress error.  The result was that all of the downward pressure of the roof now rested on a vertical joint that should have been a solid beam.  The roof would begin to sag into the center once the weight of the slate was installed.  Unbelievable.  The fix proposed by the inspector and by Robert, our carpenter now working on the inside of the house, was to slice out a channel in the center of these beams and insert, and bolt in, a piece of steel, then cover the steel with a laminate so that it could not be seen.  This fix was satisfactory to the Virginia DHS, and The Daniel Group set about finishing the job.

 

Final inspection was completed and we are glad that will never again have to work with The Daniel Group.  The slate roof was now our domain, and we spent many a freezing afternoon out back cutting slate.  The Post Office slates were huge, and each one yielded three individual slate tiles for our porch.  Our many thanks to Sarah and Max!   A local roofer, Matt Alverson, did a beautiful job installing them.  The end result is a beautiful front porch now standing as it should, gracing the front of our home on Main Street.

Epilogue
 
It had rained a tremendous amount that week, and the rain was still coming down.  As I stared out of the front bedroom, over the top of the roof of the porch, looking out at the damp landscape and the beauty of the church across the street, I noticed the remains of a bird, who had long ago been the victim of a plate glass window.  Its remains lay submerged beneath the pool of water on the porch roof, and I scrutinized its bones as their straight lines seemed to wobble with the falling of the raindrops into the puddle.  Drip…drip.  A curious thing to have on a flat roof; a puddle. 
 

Something about the rain dulls my senses, but the implications finally broke through.  There was a large puddle forming on our flat roof.  I shouted out to Robert, our carpenter, and he went out on the front porch with a ladder to inspect the underside of the porch roof.  Yes, he confirmed, the steel had never been installed in the porch roof trusses, as promised.  The joints were now separating and the roof was indeed starting to slowly collapse in upon itself.

 

To date, that fatal problem has been corrected, at our own expense, of course.  A length of string attached to the roof now monitors for any further movement.  We watched The Daniel Group hard at work on the facade of a local office supply store, wondering how they managed to get any contracts at all, given their poor quality of work.  We weren’t surprised when a few months after the facade project was completed, it fell off into the parking lot below.  I noticed that it was a different company that repaired the mess.  It will only be a matter of time before The Daniel Group, itself, also collapses under its own weight.  Ineptitude has a way of doing that.

Carla Minosh

While I am new to Blogging, I have always enjoyed sharing the stories of my crazy life, so this is simply another medium to share, and hopefully entertain and enrich others. Perhaps you can feel thankful that your life is so steady and predictable after reading these, perhaps you can appreciate the insanity and wish you had more of it in your life. Either way, the crazy tales are all true (to the best of my spotty recollection) and simply tell the tale of a life full of exploration, enthusiasm, curiosity and hard work. I hope you all enjoy being a part of the journey.

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3 thoughts on “Deconstructing the Porch”

  1. This is the most horrifyingly depressing old house blog story I have ever read. You guys are incredible and renewing my determination to fix our old house with minimal shoddy contractor involvement!

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