One of the projects that has been ongoing for the last few weeks is the construction of our porch. Progress has been slow for a number of reasons. The porch design was neglected in favor of pushing house construction forward, so we had to do a bunch of design work just to get going on it. Also, we chose materials that are not addressed in the code book and we needed to work with the building inspector to make sure we doing things right. Specifically, we are using 6″ diameter black locust posts and 3×8 hemlock beams for the rafters.

Finding center line on the black locust posts with a laser

Kerfing the post to create the tenon

Kerfs on locust posts complete

Cleaning out the kerfed tenon with a chisel.

One side of the tenon done

Mapping out where each post will fall

Mapping out where the locust posts will fall

The joists for the porch installed

Porch black locust posts installed

Black locust porch posts installed