You are looking at a couple things.
It is the underside of the porch. Joe is well underway of the teardown/documentation of the porch so we can rebuild it better, stronger and definitely straighter.
There is a couple things to note. First off you can see the original shake shingles peaking through the boards as they are on the bottom layer and have been for many years. Secondly There is a piece of galvanized flashing in the valley (badly rusted through) But this proves that the pediment detail is original to this part of the porch which was previously in question. Lastly note the roof sheathing, it's very roughly cut lumber. You can see the curves on the sides and that a log was just ripped and the edges weren't cleaned up.
Around the side is another detail that confirms what the Sanborns have been telling me. The original house had a covered side porch before the wrap around. Here we can see the hip rafter for it still in place. It was left and the wrap around porch was constructed post 1897.
Whelp, It has to get worse before it can get better.
