Some new projects around the country illustrate how the use of revival millwork elements and period details lend scale, quality, and style to a porch, a house, or a backyard structure.

Around the year 1900, Americans began to spend more time outdoors—flocking to the seashore, rusticating in the mountains and at the lake, venturing to the new National Parks out West. Closer to home, they relaxed on their porch furniture.

Missing, perhaps, from the time the house was built, the should-have-been shingled Foursquare porch now completes the home.

Curtis Porchwork General Millwork Catalog Clinton, Iowa, 1914

Learn about bungalow–chalet gable trim.

Arts & Crafts-style awnings are an instant dose of old-fashioned.

These companies make period-inspired products including columns, porch systems, architectural elements, shutters, and other exterior millwork suitable for Bungalows, Craftsman houses, Tudors, and houses of the Revival.

When you think of period shutters and exterior blinds, you probably associate them with Cape Cods, farmhouses, even Victorians. The typical Arts & Crafts Bungalow or Midwest Prairie house has windows grouped horizontally, with large mullions—not the configuration for symmetrical shutters.

With the popular old-house restoration movement is in its fourth decade, manufacturers are creating traditional millwork elements from high tech materials, and engineering better systems.

Arts & Crafts exterior millwork—wood that can rot—needs maintenance and occasional replacement. If this summer’s projects include a punky porch, you’ll appreciate these guidelines.

Browse a selective list of specialist manufacturers of interior and exterior millwork—including moldings, porch parts, wainscots and panels, columns and posts, wood mantels and wood stairs.

During the Arts & Crafts period, storybook and classic shutters were used on some bungalows, and were standard on cottages, too.