the porch
its been raining for the past several weeks most of the time. but in between showers, i spent some time working on the front porch. its now looking much better than before.
when we moved in, the porch was enclosed by sheets of glass. i'm talking about 4' x 12' panes of glass. how do you remove a massive pane of glass like that? after vetoing my dad's suggestion to throw down a tarp and hit it with a 2x4, we decided to have the window company that replaced our windows take care of it. and for just $100, they took it out like pros. they just scored with a toyo cutter all over, then knocked out small little chunks of it with a hammer and deft touch. neat to watch, and it worked perfectly. plus there isn't broken glass everywhere like there would have been if we used the brute force method.
the next step was replacing some rotten boards. we removed the nasty rotten paneling to find a whole corner of the porch rotten. it set the project back a bit, but as my dad was still here, we were able to demolish and rebuild the whole section of porch in a day. here is the rotten paneling:
after rebuilding the structure, we went and got new beadboard paneling. the nicest stuff we could find wasn't treated though, and with the weather here, it was quite a challenge to get it up. we cut it all one day before the rain, but as it would need to be primed and sealed as soon as it went up, i held off on that a couple weeks. the first nice weekend, i nailed it all up, and used some exterior primer/sealant. long day, but just in time before another rain storm. a week later i was able to paint it white, install trim along the top, and caulk the seams. now i'm trying to decide if it needs one more coat of paint, or if its done. here are a couple pictures.
next steps are scraping and painting the floor (if it ever stops raining!) and installing trim along the bottom edge. and of course replacing the crawl space hatch with tongue-in-groove floor boards. and then installing windows. that part is the most intimidating, as its something i've never done. vinyl windows are actually pretty cheap, and by using 2x4 to frame them, i think it should be straight forward. the trick will be to finish them well, use good trim, and make them look perfect.
when we moved in, the porch was enclosed by sheets of glass. i'm talking about 4' x 12' panes of glass. how do you remove a massive pane of glass like that? after vetoing my dad's suggestion to throw down a tarp and hit it with a 2x4, we decided to have the window company that replaced our windows take care of it. and for just $100, they took it out like pros. they just scored with a toyo cutter all over, then knocked out small little chunks of it with a hammer and deft touch. neat to watch, and it worked perfectly. plus there isn't broken glass everywhere like there would have been if we used the brute force method.
the next step was replacing some rotten boards. we removed the nasty rotten paneling to find a whole corner of the porch rotten. it set the project back a bit, but as my dad was still here, we were able to demolish and rebuild the whole section of porch in a day. here is the rotten paneling:
after rebuilding the structure, we went and got new beadboard paneling. the nicest stuff we could find wasn't treated though, and with the weather here, it was quite a challenge to get it up. we cut it all one day before the rain, but as it would need to be primed and sealed as soon as it went up, i held off on that a couple weeks. the first nice weekend, i nailed it all up, and used some exterior primer/sealant. long day, but just in time before another rain storm. a week later i was able to paint it white, install trim along the top, and caulk the seams. now i'm trying to decide if it needs one more coat of paint, or if its done. here are a couple pictures.
next steps are scraping and painting the floor (if it ever stops raining!) and installing trim along the bottom edge. and of course replacing the crawl space hatch with tongue-in-groove floor boards. and then installing windows. that part is the most intimidating, as its something i've never done. vinyl windows are actually pretty cheap, and by using 2x4 to frame them, i think it should be straight forward. the trick will be to finish them well, use good trim, and make them look perfect.