Covered Front Entryways: Restoring Your Home’s Curbside Appeal

A covered front entryway can add character to your house’s exterior and offer protection against the elements, all while providing you with a shaded and dry place to sit outside. Unfortunately, some of the most picturesque covered front entryways have fallen victim to the elements. Luckily, Western Spindle has standard spindles or we can custom-design spindles that match the originals on your entryway roof, helping you restore your front facade to its former glory. Here’s an example of a covered entryway that we restored in Cleveland Heights, Ohio:

A Victorian-style home deserves to look like it did when it was originally constructed. While it’s common nowadays to see covered front entryways on many types of dwellings, entryways like these weren’t common until the late 19^th-century. When more and more people started understanding the value of nature, they wanted to bring the outdoors closer to home. A similar white-and-regal restoration in Toledo, Ohio restores the house’s charm and establishes a space for outdoor seating:

As such, covered entryways and porches flourished in the United States. During this period, woodworkers were just beginning to use steam-powered equipment, which allowed them to create the more intricately-patterned posts and balustrades that we’re familiar with today. These shops could mass-produce these spindles for families to construct porches and entryway roofing, advertise them in catalogs, and ship them by rail around the country.

These days, covered entryways are used for more practical purposes — like keeping dry while searching for keys in a rainstorm — but a well-maintained entryway can add the same character and charm to a house that it did in the Victorian era.  Many people assume it’s difficult to match the look of the Victorian era-produced spindles with modern ones, but it’s what we do every day.  If you measure the length and width of your spindle, tell us how many you need, and send us a picture of a spindle you have, we can make spindle replicas to restore your covered entryway.  Here, a covered porch entryway in Leominster, Massachusetts features our replica spindles that fit the character of the original Victorian:

Fortunately, the construction of a covered entryway is easy since the International Code Council, which provides stipulations about new construction in the United States, does not require a permit for inaccessible roofing. But remember — if you are using new materials to replace historic ones, you may have to get a permit, depending on where you want to build.