Someone Painted the Wood Floor On My Porch

[Thrift Store Scott]

Black wrote:
The light blue color is in some ways more "authentic" to the original period than restored bare wood. Are you sure it's worth the effort?

There is a medium epoxy grey color that's frequently referred to as "Porch Grey" that's pretty much the standard color for porch floorboards on houses of that era. Under certain lighting conditions it does have a blue-ish cast to it.

If the house is a 1920's bungalow, there's a 95% chance it's a mail-order "kit" house. That's not a bad thing; it makes researching the original materials a lot easier. The trick is to find out whether it was ordered from Sears, Montgomery-Ward, Gordon-Van Tine, Aladdin, or one of several other lesser companies that offered kit houses during that period.

I did a little research, and it appears that Sears provided either Western Hemlock or Douglas Fir floorboards for their porches, while Gordon-Van Tine provided Washington Fir floorboards for theirs.

Reproductions of select original pre-cut (kit) home catalogs from Sears, Montgomery-Ward, Gordon-Van Tine, Aladdin, and others are available from Dover Publications at very reasonable prices.