Porch Project Moving at a Snails Pace

Well, I have the next 7 days off and I’m hoping to get some progress on the porch.  Though the temperatures will be in the upper 90’s, it is at least a dry heat and we can somewhat work in the shade.  Went to Home Depot yesterday and picked up more lumber and paint, plus ordered the crown molding that goes on the fascia.

Today I was excited about cleaning the house exterior which will actually be covered up.  Then preparing the eaves by washing, scrapping and painting.  Didn’t get too far in it when I was moving the ladder with the hammer still on the top.  You guessed it!!  The klutz that I am, the hammer fell on my head.  Couldn’t believe I did that.  I said some pretty awful swear words and got a gash of about 1 inch with lots of blood.  Maybe the elderly shouldn’t be allowed to have sharp heavy implements.  Or should be monitored closely.  Remember a couple of weeks ago when Lynn accidentally hit  me in the head with the 4 foot pipe clamp?  Well, I had just gotten over that.  Now this.  Ugh, I think I will be getting a head ache from this one.  I’m just glad it was my little hammer verses Lynn’s framing hammer.

You know when you are working on a 100+ year old house, you are going to find some remuddling.  Well we didn’t escape that.  Where the fascia boards and crown molding will go, the carpentry was cobbled up.  it appears that maybe they couldn’t do it right from being on the roof so there is about a 2 inch difference in the opening from one end of the porch to the other.  It is something we will have to just do some adapting because to do it the way it should be done would require reworking the whole roof on the house.  That isn’t happening.  The part that will needs to be modified is not structural.  Somewhere along the line, someone put a pony wall in and laid the roof rafters on that which is well done.  It was cobbling the extension of about 6 inches to accommodate the crown molding that is  done incorrectly.  The underneath fascia is straight and level, so that will stay.  When you find something level on an old house you want to leave it alone.  So I did get more old rotten trim boards off and a couple more will be coming down.  So I washed then primed the fascia board with Kilz Premium Primer, (the best primer) and put one coat of paint which is a sage green/grey.  I Like earth tones.  I hope it will all come together in the end.

While I was doing the cleaning, scraping and painting on the eaves, Lynn was replacing the floor in our horse trailer.  That needs to be repaired before we go on our trip in August to pick-up on 4 month old colt.  We are naming him Cheyenne.  I will post a picture of him when he was just a few weeks old.  What a beauty he is.  It has sparked some new life in Lynn.  Something to look forward to.

Speaking of Lynn, we will be celebrating our 25th Anniversary on Tuesday.  With all our projects and working on building our dream home and all the other projects in between, I am surprised we haven’t throttled each other.  Those 25 years went really fast as I look back on it.  We lost both our mothers, survived a major flood in 1996, back surgery in 2004, heart surgery for a stint in 2008 and numerous other life events.  But the fact that it appears to have gone by quickly says that it was a happy 25 years.

More in a couple of days.

Annie, the klutzy carpenter.

1975 horse trailer

Lynn’s photo-op

Fascia problems

The other end of the fascia

Porch Progress – Moving Slow and Steady

Lynn reluctantly spending his Sunday, working on the porch. McKinzie staying close.

April is supervising the operation.

Another detour. Fixing a leak

Love the smell of raw wood.

Staining the boards Rubicon Red. 2X6

I get a little anxious when the weekend comes around as I want to go gun-ho on the porch.  I don’t want to do any of the other things I have to do, I just want to focus on the porch.  Maybe a little OCD?  But Lynn tempers that side of me.  He says groceries first and then we are both pooped by the time we get home.  Well, I have a plan for that…. We go to town (20 miles away) and get the groceries, come home and unpack the groceries and put them away, quickly…. Get in his truck and go to Home Depot (20 miles away) and pick up some lumber and other building materials, because tomorrow is going to be a totally “get it done” day.  We come home and we are doubly pooped.

Then he breaks the news to me, there is a pipe in the horse pasture that is leaking water and that needs to be taken care of before the porch.  Ugh.  Double ugh!!  Okay, I got to rethink this.  If we turn the well pump off Saturday night, the ground will be soft but dig-gable in the morning.  We can do that first thing as that is when the shade is in that area.

Sunday morning, up bright and early and ready to dig and get that out of the way.  I am the chief-whole-digger as I can get down and into it.  (sometimes it doesn’t pay to be healthy)  The whole is dug and the leak is found and the repair is made.  Let the glue set-up and wait a few hours and test it.  In the meantime, back to the porch.  🙂 This is me smiling.

Staining the lumber first with Architect Series Semi-Transparent Wood Stain – Rubicon Red (It is a redwood color).  This is an oil stain and I really like the color.  It is just what I wanted.  I am staining the top and sides so when it is put down, all I will have to do is some touch-up.  Besides its easier to stain standing up (wood on the saw horses) than for me to crawl around on the floor.  I get down okay, its the getting up that is a challenge.

Got out all the power tools set up for the hubby.  Skill saw; palm nailer; nail gun; compressor; hammer; wreaking bar; pry bar; and a multitude of other tools to accomplish the job.  Now to get Lynn (the hubby) out there to do some of the intricate detailed foundation of the porch work.  Some of the floor joists we are keeping as they are sound and oversized compared to the lumber of today.  Some old, and some new.

If you haven’t figured it out by now I am the energetic gopher of this project.  I get the ideas in my head and try to explain them to Lynn, and he does the magic of figuring how to make my visions come true.  He does tend to get a little frustrated at how my visions keep getting modified and more detailed.  They start out simple and evolve, while he stands there and shakes his head.

Took a break from the porch, to turn the well back on, check the leak, and refill the whole.  That job is done until the next leak.  Nothing stays fixed on a Ranch/Mini Farm.  Always something to fix.

Well I got to get back to work, there’s still daylight.

Annie, the energetic gopher  🙂