Details...

The front porch of the house, from what we can tell, is the original one.  It looks like the upright posts, floor and rails with balusters were switched out at some time, but the roof line appears to be the original.  The roof type is called a shed style roof.  Not incredibly decorative, it is basically a wedge that slopes away from the house, with no gable in the center. 
We were excited to see that the original gingerbread (that was pulled from the main gables at some point in time) was still on the sides of the porch when the aluminum was removed.

Another big surprise today was the discovery of more rafter tails at the front of the porch.

Now this doesn't look like much now, but these will be visible from street view.  The soffet itself will be painted the cream color we are using for trim and the rafter tails will be cleanly sanded and painted the rich chocolate brown we are using for architectural details.  Unfortunately, as you can see, the rafter tails were squared off on the ends, at some point in time, to accommodate a gutter board and k-style gutters--these would have been rounded at the ends.  The porch posts will be painted the cream color, as well.  As far as the detail on the porch is concerned, I am making my own brackets, rails, running trim, fretwork and balusters.  The balusters are the most time consuming part of the porch project for me.
The original balusters and porch details are long gone--and in the 70's, the previous owners did their best to put something together that looked Victorian, which for the time was exceptional--there really was very little regard for preservationist thinking at that time.  This is what they came up with.

  These are what is known as a sawn baluster.  Their profile should have an intricate design that plays with the eye--allowing you to see two or three patterns mixing and merging.  The pattern I came up with to replace them are these.

The three on the left are completed.  I have about twenty completed at this point, but I will need 45 to finish the porch.  I have the day off today and I hope to get another 20 completed.  When installed, they are placed against one-another like shown above.  They will be painted the cream color.  You can see a couple of patterns as you look at it.  I hope it is worth the incredible effort.  They aren't perfect like a professionally made item, but isn't that the point?  These are hand-sawn balusters.