My husband rocks. . . and so does my dad!
I love our house. I'm gradually trying to transform it into a cottage reminiscent of the English countryside--as much as that's possible in a suburban neighborhood in metro Atlanta! But besides all the fun of decorating (and the joy of the tax write-off), owning a twenty-something year old home also comes with it's share of challenges, and plenty of things that need fixing. Last year we had a severe drought so there wasn't much rain to deal with, but this past winter and on into spring, we've been blessed with much more rain. Great for the plants and trees, and the nearly-empty lakes, but not so great for our leaky back door.
Somewhere along the way, some of the previous owners of our home were under the [false!] impression that they were handy; there are quite a few things that cause us to scratch our heads trying to figuring out why they did all the "handy" things they did. One of those is choosing to use three french doors as a back door. Only the one in the middle opens, and the outer two are sort of installed as tall windows, but none of it was really done properly, so it leaks. A lot. So much so that our carpet splashes if you jump near the back door. Yes, splashes. I have visions of much mold and disgusting things growing there. {shudder} Anyway, it was a priority to fix this, but we after pricing out everything, it turned out that building a back porch--which we wanted eventually anyway--would be a much less expensive option than replacing the whole french door/window deal.
This week, that's what we did. And when I say "we," I mean my Dad and Ken. My Dad got us a fabulous deal on these douglas fir beams from a friend of his. They are from a 49 year old church that was torn down. I love that our brand new porch has a little history already!
Saturday, Ken bought most of the other lumber we'd need.
Dad ventured down from the home--and bears--in the mountains for a few days, and stayed down here to work on our porch. He started Monday morning, and mostly worked on it by himself that day. Except for his little helper, that is. She swept the patio, and helped Granpa measure; I loved that she saw how much math is involved in real life as Dad calculated how to make the corners square, where to cut the pieces of wood, and so on!
Ken was able to work with Dad almost the whole day on Tuesday, which was wonderful because I have no idea how Dad would've lifted those ceiling beams in place without Ken.
Wednesday Dad started on his own, but Ken came home after lunch to help the rest of the day, and they got the porch roof all done except for the actual shingles; they'll do those next weekend, but it should be waterproof now.
We still need to sand the beams, and paint the whole shebang, but once the shingles are on, I'll consider it done enough for now. Eventually, we'll screen it in. And we will have to replace that door unit later, but this will stop the water problem and keep us from having soggy carpet and a rotting door. Hurray!
I love our house. I'm gradually trying to transform it into a cottage reminiscent of the English countryside--as much as that's possible in a suburban neighborhood in metro Atlanta! But besides all the fun of decorating (and the joy of the tax write-off), owning a twenty-something year old home also comes with it's share of challenges, and plenty of things that need fixing. Last year we had a severe drought so there wasn't much rain to deal with, but this past winter and on into spring, we've been blessed with much more rain. Great for the plants and trees, and the nearly-empty lakes, but not so great for our leaky back door.
Somewhere along the way, some of the previous owners of our home were under the [false!] impression that they were handy; there are quite a few things that cause us to scratch our heads trying to figuring out why they did all the "handy" things they did. One of those is choosing to use three french doors as a back door. Only the one in the middle opens, and the outer two are sort of installed as tall windows, but none of it was really done properly, so it leaks. A lot. So much so that our carpet splashes if you jump near the back door. Yes, splashes. I have visions of much mold and disgusting things growing there. {shudder} Anyway, it was a priority to fix this, but we after pricing out everything, it turned out that building a back porch--which we wanted eventually anyway--would be a much less expensive option than replacing the whole french door/window deal.
This week, that's what we did. And when I say "we," I mean my Dad and Ken. My Dad got us a fabulous deal on these douglas fir beams from a friend of his. They are from a 49 year old church that was torn down. I love that our brand new porch has a little history already!
Saturday, Ken bought most of the other lumber we'd need.
Dad ventured down from the home--and bears--in the mountains for a few days, and stayed down here to work on our porch. He started Monday morning, and mostly worked on it by himself that day. Except for his little helper, that is. She swept the patio, and helped Granpa measure; I loved that she saw how much math is involved in real life as Dad calculated how to make the corners square, where to cut the pieces of wood, and so on!
Ken was able to work with Dad almost the whole day on Tuesday, which was wonderful because I have no idea how Dad would've lifted those ceiling beams in place without Ken.
Wednesday Dad started on his own, but Ken came home after lunch to help the rest of the day, and they got the porch roof all done except for the actual shingles; they'll do those next weekend, but it should be waterproof now.
We still need to sand the beams, and paint the whole shebang, but once the shingles are on, I'll consider it done enough for now. Eventually, we'll screen it in. And we will have to replace that door unit later, but this will stop the water problem and keep us from having soggy carpet and a rotting door. Hurray!
