Front Porch Construction Part 5 – The Rest of the Railings

Although I did not really feel like working this weekend, I pushed through it and got the railings finished on the stairs. It was not easy; I knocked over boxes of screws, spilled the can of end preservative and made lots of little mistakes. Everything was harder and took longer than it should have. I also got PL adhesive on my hands and then dirt on top which won’t come off know. I tried paint thinner, salad oil and finally scrubbed with nail polish remover. My hands are 95% clean but feel like sandpaper.

Turns out the angle for cuts is 33 degrees, once I figured this out it was lots of cuts and screwing together. I also cut the railing joint on an angle at each end, 15 and 18 degrees, in order to get the areas of the 2 faces to be the same dimensions.

Next to the house there was this gap between the ledger and the foundation and we were worried water would pool there. 

I bought an angled piece of metal flashing that we inserted under the edge of the siding and over the top of the ledger board. It is caulked at the edges and has PL adhesive underneath to keep it in place. 

The final piece of deck board was screwed back in place so there is a nice seal to prevent water from getting in...hopefully.

I’m glad I got this work done this weekend, but it was not easy at the time to do it. I found out that you have to wait 60 days to a year (!) before you stain/paint pressure treated wood, so that is going to wait till August probably. What is still left to do; add trim to the columns, add beadboard to the ceiling and add a riser board to the bottom step.

And now we know: flashing is hard to get up under your siding. It took 2 of us with crowbars to push it in place