A client of mine had just had a new screened-in porch added on to her home.  She asked me to add some trim around the outside to ‘dress it up a little’.  I was happy to help.

I didn’t have to do much to make a dramatic effect from the basic porch design that I started with.  The goal was to just add some arched pieces of cedar over each ‘window’ like my client had seen in a magazine. 

To begin, I bought some long 1×6 cedar boards and cut them to the width of the opening.  Next, I had to make the curve for the arch.  To do this, I found a thin piece of wood that could easily be bent to make a curve.  At the center of the board I measured out a certain amount that would be the depth of the curve.  This was the same for each piece that I made.  Then, I held my flexible wood piece so that it crossed both corners at the end of the board and made a curve crossing the mark I made in the middle.  Tracing this makes the curve! 

I cut out the curve with my jigsaw and then use my router to make a nice decorative edge across the bottom.  Then I’m ready to tack it into place and move on to the next one.  Even though the pieces may each have a different width, by making the arch have the same depth to it, the trim looks uniform.

You could paint the trim, but for this porch I just left it to weather naturally.  An easy project with great results.