So Long Porch... (Well Half Of It Anyways)

Only on the second hottest day of the year (the hottest being the day that followed) would my dad decided to start on the front porch project.

I arrive around noon to find this...

Dad decided to go all out and rip the whole left half of the front off.  Then, realizing that the post in the middle was now the only thing keeping the roof from falling in, decided that was a good demo start!

Game plan: finish rebuilding the left half of the porch then move onto the right.

This works for multiple reasons, 1 the porch roof doesn't fall in, 2 the porch still has somewhat of a rain gaurd in case we get a monsoon (yeah right), 3 we have a little more shade from that hot summer sun, and 4 we won't have to actually move the deep freezer off the porch, just switch sides.

My dad had also managed to rip up a short little square of the floor.  We decided that since that corner cabinet is not coming out, we will be leaving those floor boards (that run under the cabinet) above that little square.  But those really aren't in too bad of shape for being as old as they are.

We moved onto more floor demo.  The odd method of cutting all those little foot sections out can be explained in the picture below...

That icky looking front board holding the whole front of the porch up was rotting from years of rain and wear and tear.  So it also needed to be cut out and replaced.

Here it is completely removed and already looking better.  My dad and I then realized we had no suitable 2x6's on the property to undertake the huge job that is supporting the front of the porch.  So, we gratefully took a quick (air-conditioned) trip to the near by lumber yard and stopped for a sandwich.  Because who can work on an empty tummy?

Fast forward to full, happy tummies an hour or so later and this is the result!  The front support is looking much better.  My dad said he will have to add mortar to where that huge gap is between the new boards and the foundation.

Here is a close up of more floor demo.  We had to take apart the threshold under the door so we could remove the old floor boards, but it will look much more porch chic when it's finished.

Then it was onto the actual floor laying which went much faster than any of the demo.  Those are tounge and groove boards just like the orignals.  Well sort of like the oringinals...

Apparently 3 inch lumber in current days is somewhat smaller than 3 inch lumber from long ago.  The only thing I can figure is someone lost a few quarters of an inch off their tape measure somewhere along the way and now you pay much more for less.

This caused some mismatching which, from the picture above, is hard to tell but if you look closely where the short boards become long, you'll notice we had to splice the longer board.

But no worries, the mismatching will be less noticeable when it's all painted the same color.

So that is it so far folks!  I'll be sure to keep ya updated.  It's looking to be a long haul project.  Here are a few of the things we need to finish short term

• Add about 4 more floor boards and cut all them to length to complete the left side of the floor.

• Add a 1x6 to the front support board and then mortar in the cracks.

• Start building the left wall.  This includes installing the new door.

• Once the left side is somewhat complete we can then move onto the right side and repeat!

Hopefully the next days of work on the porch will be cooler and a lot less sweaty/grimy!

p.s. To all those worried that I'm taking a picture in my car, I was actually not in drive...  Safety first :)