Porch Skirt for Farmers Porch
Written by Todd Fratzel. 
Farmers Porch With Lattice Skirt
The farmer’s porch in the adjacent photo has a complete pvc lattice skirt around the bottom of the porch framing. Raised porches look best with some sort of skirt to hide the framing and keep small animals and children out of the space.
Materials
The entire porch skirt is built from pressure treated framing, 1-inch pvc trim and vinyl lattice. Not having to paint this lattice is a really important feature to us. We have no desire to spend summers doing endless maintenance.
It’s VERY important that you understand how to work with PVC trim before tackling a project like this. While that discussion is far too lengthy for this article it is worth noting some key considerations:
- Thermal Movement – PVC trim expands and contracts more than traditional wood trim. Because of that the material must be fastened according to the manufacturers specifications. This typically includes using more fasteners and shorter intervals. We typically use either stainless steel ring shank siding nails or stainless steel trim screws.
- Glue Joints – Gluing the joints is almost 100% necessary in our experience to prevent sightly opening. We typically glue all miter and scarf joints with “clear” pvc cement (this means both clear primer and glue). Gluing the joints has proven very effective in combination with proper fastening to keeping the joints nice and tight.
- Don’t Be Afraid To Paint It - While many people think that PVC trim doesn’t need to be painted (it doesn’t really) it does look much nicer if you do. The paint helps hide the fasteners and joints. The beauty is most paints will last a very long time on PVC as the substrate will not absorb water which is the normal cause of paint failure.
How To Build Lattice Porch Skirt
I won’t go into much detail in this article about the specific steps in building the porch skirt. If you’d like to learn how to build a lattice porch skirt like this one then check out the series of posts that we wrote on how to build a porch skirt.
Basically the skirt is created by building a “frame” that will hold the lattice in place. The frame is constructed of 3/4″ thick KLEER Trimboard material that I rabbited to hold the lattice. The rabbit detail allows the lattice to move with changes in temperature without buckling. Each lattice panel just sits in the slot and is not nailed or screwed in place.
I used stainless steel ring shank siding nails to attach the KLEER Trimboards to the PT framing. I glued the corner miter joints with clear pvc cement and finally I added a coat of good quality latex exterior paint to the frame pieces.
I’m happy to say that after 5 seasons not one single joint has opened up and the lattice still looks as good as new.
Related posts:
- Farmers Porch “Skirt”
- Farmers Porch On Colonial Style House
- Farmers Porch Design Drawing
- Vinyl Beadboard Soffit for Porch Ceilings
- Porch and Deck Footing Types
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This is the perfect porch!
This is the Perfect Porch!
Hi Todd
your porch looks great. Can you please let me know an estimated cost to build a farmers porch? We live in northern NH, own a 48′ long pre-fab home and are planning to add a 48′X6′ farmers porch along the front. Very much like yours actually. Roof, front steps, rails and completely open on one end; I am only looking for an estimated cost at this time and will be getting a quote from a contractor, but am interested in a ball park figure.
Thanks
J.L.
Farmers Porch Cost
It’s hard to say what my porch cost because so much of it was combined with building the house. However, when we build similar porches for customers they run from $50 per sq. ft. to $100 per sq. ft. depending on the type of materials.
This porch would probably cost at least $20,000 as built. People are usually surprised at the cost but they are quite labor intensive. You also have to install some type of foundation, piers etc, pressure treated framing lumber, decking, railing, ceiling, roof framing, shingles, etc.
Hope that helped and didn’t scare you off too bad.
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[...] had two major projects I wanted to get done this summer: finish the farmers porch and to build a staircase to my workshop over the garage. As you can see from the sketch my plan is [...]
Congratulations! The porch turned out fabulous!
Todd,
I am in the process of adding vinyl porch railing to my website (white, black, tan, gray and clay/adobe colors) and wondered if you had an opinion on vinyl/aluminum railing versus wood railing (yours appears to be wood from the picture. In my experience, the aluminum/vinyl rails seem to be easier to install (especially for non-professional DIYers) and if you look at the maintenance factor, are less expensive over the life of the product.
Hmmm, I think I just came up with another good idea to post on my blog! LOL
Keith
@ Keith – Those railings are actually vinyl (Certainteed). I really like the vinyl railings especially for the ease of installation. We’ve recently installed quite a few composite railing systems that I like even better, however, they are harder to install. I wouldn’t consider a wood railing today! Too much maintenance.
Great post!
Now you have to screen that in to keep out those “sparrow sized” mosquitos you have up there!
Finally – a tutorial on building a lattice porch skirt. Been looking for one that doesn’t just mention deck building for a while now.