The verandah or porch made its debut in Canada with the Regency Period in the early 1820’s.  Light wooden treillage supported a bellcast or upswept roof. 

Millwork and fretwork, or Gingerbread simply began life as a way to create stone embellishments and details out of wood, thus allowing this type of domestic architecture to become obtainable to the working class.  When rail service became more and more dependable and less expensive, millwork companies all around North America produced catalogues of off-the-shelf verandah components including a myriad of turned spindles, balusters and columns.

One of the hardest things to do is plan, design and build a period appropriate porch, portico or verandah!  Victorian by Design has been created to provide the homeowner access on how to best proceed with his/her project of adding a porch, portico or verandah that has been removed, unsympathetically changed or to add onto an existing building to provide a beautiful outdoor living space.

It all begins with an idea. From your big dream to the finished product, we’re here to guide you every step of the way.

Bring us your traditional house idea. We begin by inviting you to a one-on-one Zoom meeting with our heritage designer with 43 years experience, Christopher Cooper Architect, we can go over materials, options and many images that would suite the style of architecture of your house. When you arrange a meeting, provide pictures of your existing house in advance so the designer can determine how to make the porch fit your home, so it looks like it was always there. We’ll do our best to give you a ballpark estimate of costs as well as timing right up front so you can better determine if Victorian by Design is a good fit for you. This is a free consultation.

If you love the first conversation and can’t wait to get started, then the next step is for us to measure and draw permit application/pricing plans. We charge a fee to draw the plans based on the scope of work (these fees range from $3,000 – $5,000 with a 50% credit when the contract is signed for one of our kits). Notwithstanding this, the plans for permit will be your property even if we do not supply one of our kits.

We do our best to have your kit completed and ready for shipping as quickly as possible and when you need it, ready for our highly trained Edifice Guild approved artisan installers. Your project manager will keep you informed and is reachable for any questions you may have. Our hope is that the construction process is fun, exciting, and as stress-free for you as possible.

Use one of our highly trained artisan installers trained by Dr. Christopher Cooper | Director of Education at the Edifice Atelier…

Have your own contractor? A short course is available for your contractor to bring them up to speed on the installation process of our kits… best part they will now become an Edifice Approved Guilds Member. Are you an avid do-it-yourself homeowner? Yes, we have a short course for you as well!

Email us and our team will walk you through next steps.