Soooo tired
This weekend we essayed stage 2 of the back porch project: Getting the crossbars attached to the posts. This meant taking all the boxes off the shelves on the back porch, so that we could move the shelves to use them to support the crossbars. Said crossbars are heavy as FUCK, so getting them up onto the top of the shelves was a task. Also self-drilling screws are not nearly as easy to get in as Youtube videos would have you believe. However, we got the crossbar on the outer edge of the borch up and screwed on, despite being interrupted by a surprise rain shower. Yay!
We got the crossbar for the posts up next to the house, but then we discovered that I'd mis-measured somehow, and the house-adjacent posts were a little too far apart. Boo! Luckily, we had plenty of extra anchor bolts, so we just had to drill a couple of new holes, unscrew the nuts holding it down, move it over, and then hammer the extra two bolts down even with the concrete. We'll cover them with concrete patch when we're done.
So the posts are in the right place, the crossbar is up, and... I notice that the crossbar goes right across the top of the screen door, which will make it impossible for us to open it. ARGH. It'd been so busy making sure that the roof parts would go underneath the eaves of the house and above the top of the door that I never even thought about the crossbar. Again, ARGH.
So I took a break and thought about it, and then we took the heavy as FUCK crossbar down, got out the circular saw with the metal-cutting blade, and cut out a section from the crossbar, sufficient to allow the door to open. Then we lifted the heavy as FUCK crossbar back up on the shelves, and screwed it on. By then it was around three in the afternoon, and getting really hot. So we hauled the shelves back into place and put all the boxes back on them, and cleaned up.
Next weekend, I'm going to take one of the two extra posts (extra on account of them having sent us the materials to make a 20x18 shelter, despite my having ordered a 20x10 one), trim it down to the correct height, and anchor it right next to the door, right next to the place where we cut out part of the crossbar. This will prevent that cut-out part from bowing under the weight of the roof pieces. Hopefully I can cut the roof pieces to size as well -- getting them up and fastened down may take another week
We put the posts out on the edge of the porch up on paving stones, because if we get a heavy rain, all the water runs that way, and since we put the block wall in, it can't drain off into the neighbor's yard, and instead flows in a torrent out the gate to the front yard. So I figured putting the foot of the post up a little higher would help prevent rust in the long term.
Rants Talk to me
We got the crossbar for the posts up next to the house, but then we discovered that I'd mis-measured somehow, and the house-adjacent posts were a little too far apart. Boo! Luckily, we had plenty of extra anchor bolts, so we just had to drill a couple of new holes, unscrew the nuts holding it down, move it over, and then hammer the extra two bolts down even with the concrete. We'll cover them with concrete patch when we're done.
So the posts are in the right place, the crossbar is up, and... I notice that the crossbar goes right across the top of the screen door, which will make it impossible for us to open it. ARGH. It'd been so busy making sure that the roof parts would go underneath the eaves of the house and above the top of the door that I never even thought about the crossbar. Again, ARGH.
So I took a break and thought about it, and then we took the heavy as FUCK crossbar down, got out the circular saw with the metal-cutting blade, and cut out a section from the crossbar, sufficient to allow the door to open. Then we lifted the heavy as FUCK crossbar back up on the shelves, and screwed it on. By then it was around three in the afternoon, and getting really hot. So we hauled the shelves back into place and put all the boxes back on them, and cleaned up.
Next weekend, I'm going to take one of the two extra posts (extra on account of them having sent us the materials to make a 20x18 shelter, despite my having ordered a 20x10 one), trim it down to the correct height, and anchor it right next to the door, right next to the place where we cut out part of the crossbar. This will prevent that cut-out part from bowing under the weight of the roof pieces. Hopefully I can cut the roof pieces to size as well -- getting them up and fastened down may take another week
We put the posts out on the edge of the porch up on paving stones, because if we get a heavy rain, all the water runs that way, and since we put the block wall in, it can't drain off into the neighbor's yard, and instead flows in a torrent out the gate to the front yard. So I figured putting the foot of the post up a little higher would help prevent rust in the long term.
Rants Talk to me