Let’s talk porches. In particular our front porch which we decided to “remodel” last fall. And by remodel I mean rip the whole thing apart, expose it to the elements, and put it all back together again Humpty Dumpty style. Mind you, this was fall…in Maine…and a MAJOR undertaking of a project. Needless to say, the moment we took all the windows out of the porch and started repairing them, the weather took a turn. It started raining. Like an every single day, build an ark, kind of raining. Of course it did. And then it started snowing. So we scrambled to put the porch kind of back together again before the snow and frigid set in for the season. It wasn’t a perfect repair and if we had more time we would have done it differently. But at least we can say our porch is on the mend. And here we are almost a year since we started making repairs. We have some catching up to do here on the blog-i-o. AKA…porch projects completed last year but not blogged about. Soooooo…let’s bring you up to speed, shall we?! To recap, here’s what we started with:
You can read about all of our porch’s “99 problems” back here. But the shortlist includes rotting window sash and stops, rotting floor and supports, broken windows, and various shrubbery growing into the porch. So last September, we pulled on our ambitious pants and decided we could fix this…in less than a month…because that sounds TOTALLY doable (note the sarcasm). We demoed the porch, which included removing the paneling under the windows because…yuck…and took out all the windows for repair.
And in our final blog post about the porch before the pre-winter scramble set in, we repaired the rotting window sill with a fabulous product called Plastic Wood (link to Home Depot).
And then…radio silence. I know, bad us. But just because we didn’t blog about it doesn’t mean we didn’t make progress. We made TONS of progress! So do you want to see what our porch is looking like these days? Do you?! Do you?! Hold on to your britches folks, you’re not going to believe this one! The difference is remarkable…ready…drum roll please…….
Womp…womp…womp. I know. It doesn’t look different per se. But it does have functioning windows…a first…and when it rains it no longer rains into the porch…also a first! Our progress may not be of the glamorous, big visual impact kind but we have made slow and steady progress on the deferred maintenance side of things. Like fixing a broken window, trimming and refitting the window sash so the windows actually open and close properly, building a new window sill that slopes away from the porch so water no longer pools underneath the sash, and painting….oh the painting! And window reglazing. Nicole Curtis would be proud!
So for the next few weeks and then some, we’ll be posting about many of these porch projects, broken down into some nice, bite-sized chunks. One post chock full of the progress to date would totally overwhelm you (and me!). And nobody wants eight straight blog posts on porch repair. So I’m going to try and mix them in with some more fun, decorating and small-ish home improvement projects. This porch project has been one serious labor of love that we thought we could finish in a month or so. Foolish us! But we’ve been enjoying the porch repair process. Although not as much as Goose. Goose loves it when we fling the windows open!
We’re hoping to have the porch in more of a finished state with refinished floors, a new ceiling, new light fixtures, etc. by the end of the summer. Okay…maybe more like the end of fall. Here’s to finally, FINALLY being able to use this space after nearly five years of living in the house. So next up on porch project train….some window sill and sash repair. Choo choo!
Pssst…But enough about our shenanigans, what have you guys been working on? Any porch repairs? Or lingering projects that took you FAR longer than you expected?
Hi Angie! I love your porch updates because I am obsessed with porches. Especially FRONT porches. It was a requirement when buying our house. Anywho, hubby and I actually just started a project on our front porch….our front door and surround. Our house is 94 years old. The door has sidelights and 3 separate transom windows. The whole surround has 87 layers of paint on it. It’s baaad, and cracked and peeling and awful. We’ve lived in the house for 2 years and mostly have been doing updates on the inside. Last year, we decided to take down the outside front dining room window (which is original!) and scraped, sanded, reglazed and painted it. It’s has these cool clips and knobs that were unregonizable with all the paint on them. Those got stripped and painted with bronze paint. The window looks totally awesome now. The reason I’m telling you about the window is because the transoms over the door are the same way – cool clips and knobs. So we’ve taken those down and are doing the same thing with those. I had to laugh when you said “Nicole Curtis would be so proud.” I actually said the exact same thing to hubby while we were working on the transoms. So true! I am obsessed with her show but unfortunately can’t watch it anymore because we cancelled our cable. Back to the door… the rest of the surround is being stripped with heat guns. It’s going to take, oh, forever, but it’s faster and more effective than paint stripper! It’s amazing all the little details that are coming out by taking off all the paint! So excited to sand and prime and paint it all again. Anyway, sorry for the novel of a comment! Keep the porch updates coming!
No need to apologize, I LOVED every word of the “novel”. Pulitzer prize winning I dare say! Ooooh…you’ll have to let me know how the paint gun stripping goes. I’ve been wanting to try that on a table but haven’t had the nerve yet.