Porch Progress

So we have some new neighbors.  I HATE THEM.  They are these ANNOYING birds.   CAW CAW CAWING ALL DAY LONG.  I’m not talking pretty bird calls… I am talking constant horrible noise pollution that muuuuuuust stooooop.

I saw one the other day and it was pretty big so I looked it up, looked like a hawk. According to a similar annoying call- I believe these birds are goshawks.  Which is our schools mascot.  Now I know why they are a mascot- they can annoy their enemy TO DEATH.

Ok, I am calm now.

Last week I told you that I was going to be a good girl and start my big masters project that I have been avoiding for a year and I actually did.  Gold star for me!  Don’t get too excited virtual friend, it’s not done but it’s one step closer!  So I haven’t really been focused on making anything this week so I decided to share with you the evolution of our porch over the years.

This is what it looked like when we first moved in.  It was in pretty rough shape, lots of boards missing and I was scared to walk across it.  Then one weekend my parents came up to help us tear it apart and use the joists for a new and improved porch.

Part of the destruction involved getting underneath and digging towards the far side of the to create a slope so that water would run away from our house.  I let Eric do that, he was thrilled.  I will mention that Eric and I are not super fond of spending a ton of time outdoors.  So sitting underneath a old porch digging for hours was not our idea of a great time but I will say it does feel good doing this stuff yourself.  Also we have a contractor in the family (thanks Dad!) who helps us get this stuff correctly torn apart and eventually put back together.

A big pain was that the past owner sawed through the boards to get the middle chunks out and left the little areas attached to the joists which sucked taking off.  Took forever.

There’s my dad!  Go dad!

And here is mom!  This is how she normally looks, she didn’t even have to borrow clothes from us at all.

Eventually we had it all taken apart and we left this little plank so we could access the backyard from our kitchen.  Walk the plank!  There were a bunch of other steps to do after this stage but I didn’t document them.  We had to move joists to the other side of the porch so it went all the way to the garage.

Here is where we got our composite decking and began installing it.  You will notice on the left side a big ol’ gap between the house and where the boards lie.  That space was reserved for a step.  We installed all the decking and it was actually beginning to look like a usable porch!  How exciting!

My dad had this idea for a railing, it was low enough to still have a view from the kitchen and it could serve as a bench and a planter box.  Creative minds I tell ya.  So he showed me how to do it and I spent a couple of days and built the whole thing.

Done!  Well, not really.  We still needed to stain and add mesh to the bottom area.  It turns out that over the winter my construction skills didn’t hold up and dad had to basically tear it all down and redo it.  Ooops.  I am going to jump ahead to what it looks like now, after dad rebuilt it and we stained it.

Why hello there new porch.

See those hanging baskets?  We bought those today.  I wanted two about the size of the one on the right and I made Eric run in because I was literally eating a deep dish pizza in the car with Iris.  So he picked out this small and GIANT one.  Oh well, I actually think it works well in the space.

We recently added these cutesy lights that attract a ton of mosquito’s.  Ahh nature.

Fun fact: the landscaping below the deck on both sides I did while I was 9 months pregnant back in 2015.  I would work for an hour a day and then take a long nap, eat, and nap again.

And the before and after:

I would definitely say our porch has had quite the makeover.  Lookin’ good porch!

-Jo