now you may want to ask "why would anyone ever want to build a porch INSIDE a building?!" I am a graduate student and am in a class where the end product is an exhibit, part of this exhibit will be a porch, where visitors can sit or stand and listen to oral histories from local community members. The porch will be inside the exhibit space in the library and will be up for approximately one year.

The time period that I'm looking to recreate is 1940s, in rural, south-eastern, North Carolina. Typical houses in the community during this time were 4 room houses,with central fireplaces, mostly built around the turn of the 20th century, pine wood, and tin roofed. I am looking to rebuild the front of the house, and the porch.

Because of space restrictions, I will focusing on the siding of the house and the flooring of the porch. What I've imagined is a basic frame structure for the base of the porch which is roughly 6ftx 10ft, which is secured to walls on two sides (the left and back if you are looking straight on) of the structure. Three 4inch sq posts attach to the frame in the front and rise up to support the edge of the roof. The roof is supported by beams that come out from the wall/front of the house and are attached to the three posts. The back wall will be have a frame attached to it so that we can attach the siding without tearing up the gallery walls.

My questions are,

--Is there a way i can 'finish' the edges of tin roofing material so that people won't cut their hands if they touch the roof of the porch?

--A siding option that many people used during this time was paper-board, sometimes called beaverboard or Masonite. Is this still available for sale today?

--We can not secure the porch to the floor, are there other methods that might work to secure the porch or will this even be an issue?

--Are there any major problems with my basic plan? my main concern is safety and making sure that the porch is as stable and secure as possible, within my limitations.