My last blog on this site was March 11, 2013, full of optimism, then the weather didn’t cooperate. Ugh!! About 1 1/2 months later I’m still filled with optimism. Took some days off work so the back porch can have my undivided attention.
You know when you have this picture in your head of how you want something to turn out? Well I have one of those in my little bitty brain and I can’t wait to make it real.
Climbed the ladder and started pulling off shingles along with my “sod” roof. I did take pictures but will not post them until it is finished because I am just too ashamed that I let it get in this shape. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have anything else to do!!
For the next 4 days sunny and beautiful weather is expected. So I will be enjoying the great outdoors working on my back porch. My daughter is coming from California and will probably get here on Sunday and I hope she is well rested when she gets here. Hint, hint. There will definitely be some runs to Home Depot for some redwood, cement and some shingles.
I have two hydraulic jacks holding up a corner of the porch floor, but it appears that we are raising the floor, but the roof is not raising with it!! Hummm, that means that we have to find another way to shore the porch roof up about 2-3 inches another way. Our plan is to save the roof joists as they are solid, then rebuild the porch under it. It might be that we will have to just tear it all down, but I think we can do it this way better as we have the tongue-and-groove ceiling and I want to keep that. I really wish I had someone that was handy and not afraid of heights to assist with this project. Wishes and hoping doesn’t get the job done. So tomorrow as soon as it hits 50 degrees I will be hard at work.
We have those 10″ cement tubes that we will use for the footings of the porch, so that means that I will be digging down 2 feet to the frost line, then mixing cement. Lucky me, we at least have a little cement mixer that Lynn loves to operate. You know it is one of those “man toys” of his. I will take pictures of that this weekend when we get that far. See I said “when”, not if….
Remember this is not the dream house, as that comes immediately after this back porch project is done. This project has kinda demanded my attention as it is disintegrating before our very eyes. That will be the last major repair project on the little house we live in. Then its back to the “dream house,” and the fun lift.
I plan to get all my little projects done so that when I actually retire from my “paying job”, I can sit on my front porch (in the dream house of course) and drink iced tea and enjoy the view.
Until tomorrow,
Annie, the reluctant carpenter
15yearsandcountingdream 