Tag: Side porch

All It Needs Now is a Coat of Paint

Once again, I am forever grateful for the handyman skills of my father-in-law. Whenever there is some sort of project that Sam (or I) want to do, he is able to see the finished product in his head. Nothing is impossible and even though there always seems to be a hiccup or two, the project always turns out fantastic.

Recently, we decided to lay down new deck boards on our side porch. We also put up new columns, as the old ones were dry rotted. It’s been a project, but the hard part is finally complete. I know I have shared some of the before pictures….

The missing post in the above picture is what led to the rest.

Then we had issues with the boards. Ours had no groove in the middle, so we had to make adjustments.

New posts went up first and some of the deck board, but there was much more to do.

The above is where we left off a week or so ago. These boards, while not in the best shape, were going to take some work to get up. Despite having some minor surgery earlier in the week, and me telling him we could wait another week, my father-in-law said he was coming over Sunday to work on the porch.

So, on Sunday morning, I brought out all of the tools we needed for the day. I had the air compressor, nail gun, impact drill, hammers, pry bars, table saws, jigsaws, miter saws, and another bag of various tools ready to go. He was there at 10am sharp and we got right to work.

The first thing we did was start laying boards where we left off. We worked right up to where the post was and then ripped the rest of the old boards out. Around the posts we had to cut notches so the boards would fit. We did some creative cuts when we got to the end and against the house. Then we had to go to the other end and finish a couple boards there.

Once the deck boards all down and in place, my father in law took some excess wood and made some decorative boots for around the tops and bottoms of the posts. I learned that my table saw can be adjusted to cut at a 45 degree angle! Who knew!?

I thought the boots looked very cool on the posts.

All I need to do now is paint the posts and figure out whether or not to stain or paint the deck boards. The finished product…

It was a long day. I spent a lot of time bending over and on my knees. My back and knees are a bit sore today. It was worth it … and the countless ibuprofen pills I have been popping all day!

Thanks again for your help, Dad!

Hit the Deck!

So, my father-in-law and I are working on yet another project. This one, however, was not a planned project. And as per usual, once we started it, we found that we’ll be doing more than expected.

This time it is our side porch. Forgive the photo, but the only one I could find was one I took once the Christmas lights were up.

The above picture will serve as a “Before” picture, as I didn’t really take one.

So here is what happened. Sam and I have been discussing getting rid of the railing and just keeping the posts for some time. One day she was sitting on her bench rocker and I leaned over the railing and it broke away from the post. That wasn’t such a big deal because the railing was going away.

However, when the second post from the left in the above picture broke away from the porch itself, we knew we had a problem. It seems that the bottom of the post and the deck boards were dry rotting. With that little incident, I called my father-in-law.

We began to look at each of the posts and saw that some of the others had done the same thing. One of them, in all honesty, we can’t even believe that the roof hadn’t come down! We decided that were were going to do some wider posts and just fix the bad boards. But, as I have stated, nothing ever goes that smoothly for us.

Once we got rid of the railings, we went to work on the posts. The bad news was that they only had a few of the decking boards we needed. That was when my father-in-law suggested that we could probably get away with just replacing the bad boards and stain/paint the deck. We ripped out the bad boards and laid the new boards and ran into another issue.

The old boards are double boards (in the orange square). They have a groove down the middle (green arrow). The only deck boards we could get were single boards (in the blue square) and when you put them together, there is no groove. This led to about a one inch gap (circled in yellow). So it became obvious that we now will end up ripping up all of the old deck board and replace with new ones – at about 15 bucks a board!

With daylight fading, we were able to lay down the remaining deck board and we got up three of the five posts.

In all honesty, despite the work and cost involved, I think the deck is going to look really good. My father-in-law and I were talking and I can see a grey paint or dark stain for the deck itself and white paint for the posts. I am excited to see how this all turns out. I’ve got my fingers crossed that we run into no more issues ….

I’m hoping this is the last big project for quite awhile!