We've kicked it into high gear at Norris House, and can now reveal a truly fabulous front porch. Check it out!

Classic tongue & groove at your feet, and traditional beaded ceiling above - don't you love it?! Don't worry - that's just a primer coat on the ceiling. Traditional Southern haint blue is incoming shortly! We're also missing quite a bit of gingerbread, but that too will be rectified in the coming weeks.

The floorboard color was a bit trickier to select. We already had four colors in the palette on the exterior, and were wary of adding something else to the mix. The issue: staying within the existing palette wouldn't work. Going too light (the gray of the siding) or too dark (black) would look terrible with the dirt and grime you expect visitors to track in on the soles of their shoes. We worked closely with our painter to select a darker gray within the family of our siding paint that will look great and perform beautifully no matter what gets tracked on it.

We learned from the one historic photograph of Norris House that the front porch railing and balusters matched those that survive today on the north porch. That was a stroke of luck, because it gave us something to copy.

Our construction team gently removed one of the original balusters and gave it to our vendor for use as a template. The vendor created a pattern that exactly duplicates this baluster, and created enough brand new balusters for the new front porch. The wood is absolutely gorgeous - in fact we think it might be mahogany. It's a shame to cover them, but all of the front porch will be painted in crisp white.

The same process will be used to duplicate the porch railing and the decorative trim from the original north porch. We think it's really exciting that this technology exists, so we we can do justice in reviving this piece of Raleigh history.

A Truly Southern Front Porch

Reproducing the Historic Balusters