Porch extension delema..desperately need advice

12 years ago

Our house is a 1970s ranch style that has a long,narrow concrete slab porch. There is two stone pillars/posts at each end of the porch. They are located close to the edge of the porch.

The porch is so narrow that I can't use my power chair to be able to enjoy sitting on the porch.

I need to mention that the porch has a large crack that runs across the porch vertically. Also, it looks like the porch may have seperated from the house. It would be cost prohibitive to tear it out and build a new one.

I came up with an idea I think would work,but I don't know if it would look alright.

Since I need a deeper porch, I thought about building a wood porch over the concrete and extend the depth a foot or so. My concern is that the stone pillars would be set back from the edge of the porch. I would also like to add a porch railing.

Do you think it would look strange? We also want to re-landscape our front yard this spring.

Our house has a slate gray roof with white trim and yellow for rest of the house. The porch railing would be in white.

The exterior of the house is 3/4 sandstone.

Please let me know what you think. Open to all suggestions.

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Comments (3)

deckman22
12 years ago
All that sounds well & good, but you should address the problem with the concrete porch before just covering it up with the deck.

Extending the deck past the pillars may look uncommon, but not bad imo. You need the space so seems the thing to do. I'd use metal railing.
User
12 years ago
You would need to dig a footer and install some support for the extension. You can't just cantilever it over the concrete decking with no support underneath and not fastened to any supporting members tied into the concrete. You will also have to deal with the height issue. The deck will need to be framed properly, and that will make the resultant height above the threshold of your front door which can create moisture infiltration issues as well as access issues.

Perhaps contact a local high school that has a vocational program and explain your situation. If you would be able to pay for the materials, perhaps they would donate the labor. I've known many who took on projects of this type in order to gain trade experience and do community service all in one project.
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km5tq
Original Author
12 years ago
Sorry, I just now saw your reply to this post. Thank both of you for your advice. I mainly wanted to know if the extension would look strange. We will contact someone who will know how to do the job correctly...I hope.

I know the slab will present a problem. Again, thank you for your help.