An entrance treatment on a historic home

 It was many years ago, and I was a young carpenter. I didn't take a before shot, but if you can imagine just the finial and the shape of the turning within, capping off a door casing with buttons in the corner, that was pretty much it. This would be about 20 years ago.

I had just finished off framing and trimming a glass roofed guest house, including mantles and kitchen, as well as a tennis court fence that took a crew of 50 nearly 3 months to build and now the main entrance to the house was looking a little shabby for it's new neighboring guest house.

The house is in the Barrie Ontario area, and if you can believe it, the owner received a gift from a friend just as I finished the headpiece... the 5 birds on a branch concrete casting you see in the middle. It was finished and I was packing up the tools when the owner walked up with the casting saying... "Just work this in ok?".

How it was done?  Just nested and built up trim, with a proper roof flashing tucked into the siding. It is sort of like a mantle, however everything needs to be sealed as you go, and you certainly cannot use Poplar... that would rot within a couple of years. Believe it or not I salvaged the old lead flashing from the original installation and used that to seal the turned finial and lower part of the curve after making it deeper.

By Lawrence Winterburn

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