Back Porch Project: Railing Choices

 Since we've taken on this project I started noticing other peoples' homes and how their porches are built. There are so many kinds and styles of railings for porches, decks, and outdoor stairways. My conclusion is that there's no right or wrong - anything goes!

Of material, we rejected PVC and composite early on, even though composite seems to be the option sellers are promoting. That left wood or metal. Newly popular on homes being built around here now, is horizontal cables between the porch posts instead of balusters. The new home down the street has them, but within several weeks after the new owners moved, many of the cables were stretched out and sagging badly. Metal balusters look nice, but they're more expensive. Being aluminum, they don't appear to be very sturdy. When we looked at what Home Depot had in stock, every single package or pre-made section had at least one bent or smashed one. Steel are available too, but these are special order at a higher cost than aluminum.

So wood it was.

Next style choice: posts on top of the floor or attached to the side of the framing? From observing other porches and staircases, both are common. With the posts on top of the floor, the balusters are set between the rails. When the posts are attached to the side of the floor deck, the balusters are on the side as well. I left those decisions to Dan since he's doing the constructing. 

Posts. We could get ready made posts at the precut 4-foot height for $18 each. Or we could get 8-foot 4x4 posts for $10 each, and cut them in half ourselves to make two porch posts per ten bucks. Any guesses which we chose?

For the staircase railings they sold kits, which we did get. I do think they were heavily overpriced and that the DIYer could easily make the stair balusters themselves. 

The problem with all of the above is finding good instructions. They show you what they offer but not how to actually construct it. The instructional flyers and handouts were poorly written, and most of the instructions at websites are more sales pitches than usable information. So as Dan has begun the railing phase of the project, he's pretty much figuring it out as he goes along.

Next time I'll have photos of his progress.  

Back Porch Project: Railing Choices © 2026

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Seasonal Shift

 At last, the temperature pattern has changed. It was an overnight change, not a gradual one. We were still pushing almost 90°F (32°C) everyday up through the first weekend of October. Then a front pushed through and the temps have been lovely since then. And the pattern is holding. 

So it feels like autumn, even though it doesn't look like autumn, except for the mistflowers and golden rod, and a few swirls of windblown leaves beginning to fall.

Mistflower

The harvest is wrapping up. It was a good year for muscadines.

I have about two gallons of these in the freezer. I'll probably use them for both wine and jelly.

It's breeding season for the goats. The bucks are constantly on the lookout for the does. Behind their little barn is their best spot for catching a glimpse of the girls.

Ralph and Jonah

The girls, on the other hand, are only interested when they're in heat, which occurs about every three weeks. Otherwise, they are busy hunting acorns.

Lily, Nora, Saluda, Willow, and River, way off in the background.

The boys are out of luck until November. The timing of breeding is based on making sure the kids are born in mild weather.

I'm still getting a few things from the garden. Like okra.

Jing okra. It turns green when cooked.

Groundhogs (which are still a problem) destroyed much this year, including demolishing our peas and lettuce. Of the sweet potatoes, they continually munched off all the leaves, so that the plants had little time to actually make sweet potatoes. Here's my total harvest.

Some of them are pretty sorry looking, although the goats won't mind those. I should probably just plant the best ones in pots to overwinter. 

One thing the groundhogs didn't touch was the winter squash.

sweet potato squash flower with pollinator

Gracie showing us the green squash she found

It's been an excellent year for winter squash

I love this variety. I still have three or four almost mature ones left to pick. We eat the small green ones chopped fresh in salad or steamed or sauteed like summer squash. 

The groundhogs haven't touched the green beans either, although perhaps because they are pole beans.

I planted them in late spring, but they have been very slow to produce.

Our first picking was just the other day.

My slicing tomatoes are done, but our volunteer cherry tomatoes are still producing. You may recall I mentioned my fermented cole slaw, in which the fresh cherry tomatoes are wonderful. 

I've also taken to adding my hard cured goat cheese, grated. Such complimentary flavors! This is currently our favorite salad. At least until the greenhouse lettuce is big enough to eat. 

As I write this, the remnants of Hurricane Isaias have been raining all day, with more to come all night. The rain is welcome and needed. So it's been an indoor day.

Gracie and Violet

How about you? Do you still have a garden? Or are you done for the season and getting ready for winter?

Seasonal Shift © 2026 by Leigh at 

https://www.5acresandadream.com

Back Porch Project: Floor Part 2

 Continued from Part 1

So here's where we left off last time.

The porch floor was completed almost to the top of the old concrete porch. Before Dan could continue, he had to address two things:

• How to fasten the wood flooring to the concrete
• The levelness gap between the old porch and the new. The old porch slopes away from the house, while the new floor does not. 

Picture from last post.

Then there were questions about the porch roof posts and the downspout. 

Photo from January 2020, before
Dan replaced the knee braces.

The little roof is narrow and only there to keep the rain off your head when opening the back door. The posts sit on each edge of the concrete porch. Since we're extending the porch to the house, we wondered about the farthest post. It might be in the way; something to have to walk around when the new porch is finished. Both porch corners have a knee braces on the ends, so Dan wasn't sure we needed both posts. 

The remaining center post would have to be shortened because the floor will be raised by the thickness of the boards. Another detail to tend to.

The other item in question was the downspout. 

Photo from when we were just getting started.

To leave it he would have to cut the floor to accommodate it and he wasn't sure he wanted to do that. And then there was the idea of crawling around under the porch if the downspout needed maintenance. Instead, Dan decided he would move it to the other side of the porch roof where it can drain into the driveway. 

Decisions made, it was time to get to work. Here's what Dan did to install the wood boards over the old concrete porch. He made tapered shims. 

Violet

To fill in the space where the first concrete step made a hole, he fitted the board in the space as a joist with a long tapered end.

I have no idea if that description makes sense, but I think the pictures explain it better than me!

Gracie and Violet are playing ambush-and-pounce. That's Gracie on
the concrete, while Violet is below, hiding under the board floor.

The shims took several fittings and trimmings for snug placement. Once he was satisfied, Dan glued them in place with adhesive, weighted them with bricks, and let sit until the next day.

To install the boards, he predrilled holes with a concrete drill bit. 

Concrete screws were used to secure the boards in place. 

Adhesive flashing along the edge of the exterior wall.

So here it as at the moment, with a new porch post.

The new porch floor is very solid underfoot.

Cat trivia: One feature you might have noticed is our kitty door. I have to mention an interesting historical tidbit I picked up while listening to Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery on audiobook. He spent his early childhood as a slave on a plantation in Virginia. He noted that every house, from mansion to shack, every house had a cat door. Kitty doors are nothing new.

Porch railing is next.

Back Porch Project: Floor Part 2 © 2026

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com