A Much Needed Face Lift

A few weeks before Hurricane Irma arrived (September 10, 2017), The Colonel and I noticed that the upper deck of our back porch was in need of repair.

The Colonel tied the loose pieces of decking down before Irma hit and his quick fix rode out the storm. Hurricane season ended on the last day of November 2017 and we are now in our dry season. So, The Colonel and I decided it was now time to fix the upper deck.

We called John, our builder friend. He built Darling-Sister-In-Law's house (which is now Yam's) and my Favorite-In-Law's house. He came out to look over the job and give us a quote. We liked his quote and told him he could start whenever he was ready.

On January 22nd, John and Doug (the carpenter) started on the porch fix. In addition to fixing the upper decking we also had John and Doug re-wrap the posts on the entire house (the little cottage porch did not need fixing). The eleven-year-old wood that wrapped the posts was rotting in areas.

John and Doug arrived each morning around 7:30 and began the day's work. They stripped off the rotted wood.

Once the old wood was removed, they replaced it with new material and then began working on the upper decking. Our old decking material was brown and we decided we wanted to go with a gray color this time so that it would more closely match the gray painted on the lower porches. We had met John at The Home Depot before the job started to pick out the new decking.

The railing was removed and some of the old decking was pulled up to see how many of the wood stringers would have to be replaced.

John initially thought that he could just replace the rotten parts, but decided he would completely replace every stringer.

The Colonel and I helped John and Doug pass down the railing so that they could begin to tear up the old decking and old stringers. The Colonel and I cleaned the railing once it was in the yard.

John and Doug worked for four days on the house then took the weekend off. Remember when I said that we are in the dry season? Well, it poured buckets of rain that Sunday night and it was too wet for John and Doug to do any work. They returned the following Tuesday to finish the upper decking.

Doug passed the 20-foot pieces of decking up to John...

...then they measured, cut and pieced it all together. They said it was a bit tricky getting the spacing of the boards perfect...but they sure got it perfect.

Once the decking was down, it was time to reattach the now spotless railing. John and Doug finished the job on February 4th.

Beautiful!

Now that the upper porch is brand-spanking new, I told The Colonel that I would like to have it screened in (actually I had been wanting it screened in for a couple of years...glad we waited). The Colonel said he would like it screened in too and get new furniture for it...bonus! We ordered some Adirondack chairs from Polywood, a company that is in Syracuse, Indiana. Got to give some business to our Hoosier peeps. 

Of course, posts and photos to come as the furniture arrives and the screening is complete. But, before we can get the screening done, we have a painter coming to caulk and paint the newly wrapped posts. I am so looking forward to using my upper porch again. I can hardly wait!

The new furniture arrived!! Love the red with the gray. The Colonel made the table from some of the leftover pieces of decking. I could not find an outdoor lamp I liked (or one that was not too expensive) so I bought this one that has a nautical bent to it. I cannot leave it outside, so I will have to bring it out when we want to use the porch in the evenings.