The front porch itself is in pretty good shape, with the exception of the roof!

It is falling apart (or down for that matter), has some water damage and does not drain properly. In fact, the roof slope is draining the water towards and then into the building. I discovered the associated water damage in the basement back in May (see also 06/09/2009 post). Fixing won’t suffice! We decided to start over.

There were a couple of items we wanted to get out of our new roof. First, it was important to us to adjust the roof drainage. Water should flow to a low point at the west side, where it is drained through a small pipe, downspout nozzle, rain chain and splash pad into the front yard. Drew, who volunteered to help me with some work, suggested the west side, where the nozzle, rain chain and splash pad would not interfere with architectural details, such as along the north side.

I also wanted to have the opportunity to install a small green roof or planters in the future. We substantially upsized the framing and mounting for that reason. Last but not least, we would like the option to install and swing sometimes down the road, which the new framing would allow us to do.