When wood columns start to fail, the question most people ask first is: “Can I find something that looks exactly like what I already have?”

The honest answer is: yes, if you’re working with H.A. Stiles. Today, we’ll walk through a real project we supplied for an owner in Chicago. The original columns on the front entryway had been there for decades. Over time, water had gotten in and the wood had rotted from the inside out. The columns had to go.

But the entryway itself was still beautiful, with its carved stone facade, ornate frieze above the door, and transom window. All of it was original and intact. The homeowner did not want something close, they wanted something that looked like it had always been there.

The entryway featured two tall fluted columns. Fluted means the columns have long vertical grooves running up the shaft. It is a style that goes back to ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and it shows up on a lot of formal American homes built in the 18th and 19th centuries.

These columns sat on stone bases and supported an elaborate entablature above the door. The capitals at the top of each column were ornate and carved. Fortunately, the capitals had survived in good enough shape to be restored by others on the project. Our job, however, was the columns themselves.

The before photo you’ll see below tells the story clearly. The paint had peeled and the wood had cracked. There were areas where the surface had completely broken down from years of moisture. From the outside, the columns still held their shape, but they needed to be replaced.

Two fluted columns. Each one started at 14-1/4 inches in diameter at the base and tapered to 11-1/2 inches at the top. The overall length was 104 inches, base included, with no cap since the original capitals were being restored separately.

The wood species chosen for this project was Sapele, which is a hardwood with a consistent grain that takes paint evenly and holds up well in exterior applications. The columns were sanded and ready for paint before delivery.

In addition, the taper on these columns matters more than most people realize. A straight column and a tapered column look completely different once they are installed. The taper is part of what gives a classical column its proportions, and getting that taper right by matching it to what was originally there is not a task you can eyeball from a catalog.

The goal on this project was to get as close as possible to the original columns. Not just a rough approximation, but an actual match.

That process starts with measurement, including the diameter at the base and top, overall height, the flute profile, the spacing between flutes, and the depth of each groove. Every one of those details goes into the spec, and every one of them affects how the finished column looks on the building.

When the original design is no longer documented anywhere, you are working from the physical columns themselves. You measure what is there, account for any settling or deformation that happened over the years, and build to what the columns should be rather than what they have become.

The result, as you can see in the after photo below, is an entryway that looks whole again. The new columns sit under the restored capitals and against the stone facade as if they were always there.

You cannot source columns like these from a home improvement store. The sizes, taper specifications, and profiles do not exist, and the flute profile will not match. If you go the route of a standard store, you are likely making compromises on a building that was originally designed without compromise in mind.

The same is true if you work with a supplier who only offers standard dimensions. A 14-1/4 inch starting diameter tapering to 11-1/2 inches over 104 inches is a specific profile. Simply put, it’s either produced to those numbers or it does not get made correctly.

This is what custom wood column supply means. It’s about starting from the spec and working forward to the finished product.

If you have a project where the columns need to match something that already exists, whether that is a historic home, a damaged entryway, or an addition that needs to tie into original architecture, the process is the same. You bring us the specs and we get to work.

One thing to understand about rotted columns is that the visible damage and the actual damage are rarely the same thing.

Paint holds a column together long after the wood underneath has broken down. What looks like a surface problem from the street can be something much more significant once the column is taken down. There is likely soft spots, hollow sections, and structural decay that was hidden behind a coat of paint that was doing a lot of the holding.

The after photo above shows what a matched replacement delivers. The entryway reads as a complete whole and the proportions are right. That is what working from the original spec, rather than settling for the closest available size, produces.

If you have a column replacement project and you need to match existing dimensions or profiles, we can help you work through the specs. Submit your measurements and we will take it from there.