Thursday 31 August 2017

The Porch

The LBH had a tiny front porch at one time, which must have been added when the buildings were dragged 7 km from the then-ghost town of Discovery. The house was made up of 2 of those Gold Rush era cabins, which were joined together in the middle. We think that this was done in 1917, as the linoleum floor has an underlay of Vancouver Daily Sun newspapers dated 1917 - full coverage of WWI... Interesting stuff!

We have one old photo of the LBH, from the BC Archives. In the picture, a man, woman and baby are sitting on the front steps - of the porch - in black and white, with quite a tree-less landscape in the background. (Atlin had recently burned down, the last of 3 major fires that devastated the town in the early 1900s. Discovery, abandoned, provided many buildings for Atlin - the ultimate feat of recycling.)

When we bought the house 5 years ago, there was an even smaller porch than the one pictured in the old photo, and it was leaning in towards the house, rotting. It wasn't difficult to pull it off. During our renovations, we've schemed and wondered about what we should do about a porch. We wanted to honour the history of the house, but we also did not want front stairs that end up directly in the street.

Here are some photos to show what has been going on. The porch is nearly complete! Our trusty carpenter just has to install the stairs and the access door to the crawl space, along with the remaining skirting on the exterior foundation. It's coming along nicely. Because much of the lumber is pressure-treated, we must wait at least a year before painting the porch. Luckily, our recycled cedar spindles were previously painted red, which is handy because it makes the porch look great in the meantime.

LBH circa 2012, when we bought it!
Spring 2015, after foundation re-done
August 2017, deck in progress
Aug 2017, stairs to be added on the right
Our youngest child resting her head on new railing!

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