The porch foundation also went on quickly and easily. The lattice work is sandwiched behind the porch foundation which gives a three piece thickness and provides support for the porch floor. After the porch foundation was on, I spackled in the slots and painted the porch floor.

Now for the fun part. I'd been looking forward to bashing the porch roof into a balcony, but there was also some apprehension on my part because I'd never bashed anything quite that much before. I didn't want to vary too much from the original design of the porch because I found that design to be charming in the first place. All I wanted to do was drop the slant out of the porch roof and make it a flat surface, keeping the same porch trim and railing below.

When the French doors were installed, I discovered that to make them level with the interior floor, the bottom edge would be about 1.5 inches lower than the top edge of the porch roof. Fortunately, to take the slant out of the roof, it needed to go down on the back side by about 1.5 inches. That couldn't have worked out any better if it had been made that way. So, using the porch roof pieces, I laid them out flat on a table and determined that the edges would all fit up on the triangular corner pieces to create the L for the wrap around balcony. Using a whole lot of tape, I did a dry fit of the balcony and the porch below, and determined that the original pieces would work. The porch railing below was a bit too short without the slope in the roof, but the verge pieces and the verge trim were easily adaptable to make supports and bring the balcony and the porch railings together.

With the mechanics figured out, I bravely picked up my bottle of gorilla glue (not my usual choice, but I really want holding power on this house in the spots where support is a little light) and started putting it together. I glued together the end pieces of the porch roof first so they would hold in place and let that dry completely. For additional support, I glued basswood beams to the underside of the back edge of the porch roof so they would fit snugly in the angle between the house wall and the porch roof.

I put on the side porch railings first to get a perspective of square and then the front railing. With that was in place, I added the porch roof on the front and taped it heavily to hold in place. After the glue was dry, I added the verge piece to the front and attached it to both the top of the porch railing and the bottom of the porch roof, then completed the same steps for the side and the ends.

After the glue had set completely on those pieces, I added the verge trim all the way around. There was a bit of a gap on the side where the porch roof had warped just a bit, but with a shim, it is still anchored firmly to the side of the house and can be covered with trim so it won't show.

Here's a pic of the foundation supports I added under the back edges:

The baseboards went on next to finish the inside edge of the balcony floor and give just bit more support. The whole process of building the porch and balcony took four days, but most of that was time letting the glue dry and harden.

With the balcony and porch securely in place, the porch trim went on. I was very happy to see that the large curving piece of porch trim that came with the kit was still going to fit around the edge of the balcony on all sides. There was a great deal of celebration over that! I'll add the balcony railing as the last step of building.