The Saga Continues

So, as mentioned in the previous post, we had a bit of rain coming through and had to protect the porch as best as we could.  We hung some tarps from the roof line because it wasn’t supposed to be all that windy and it was more likely that any moisture that did get onto the floor would evaporate faster than it would if we just laid tarps out on top.  For the most part this held true, though the mailman had to walk up onto the porch and tracked wet foot prints, so it wasn’t a perfect solution.  Still, it was better than the alternative.

Eventually, after a few days, the sun returned and we were able to get to work on painting.  We put two coats of primer on and two top coats on the floor, as well as one coat of primer and one coat of a more “cream” color on the columns and previously-white portions of the porch. 

Unfortunately, toward the end of the primer coat on the columns, we noticed something going on down in the foundation…

Brooke noticed it first.  Some of the rocks and mortar from the supports had fallen out overnight.  This happened after we’d been on the porch with our initial priming work, so we’d been on there quite a bit, but never felt any shifting.  However, clearly something happened.

Even the floorboards had separated a bit, so now pine between the boards was exposed and, obviously, wasn’t primed against moisture.  The floor had dropped ~4 inches, so it had also separated some from underneath the siding.

Needless to say, this wasn’t good.  We called the construction folks and had them come out the next morning.  They looked it over and decided the supports had to be replaced.  As we couldn’t prove that this was necessarily their fault (and, honestly, we can’t know that for sure…it could just have been a coincidence, but seriously, we were not wanting to spend more than we already had!), we were going to have to shell out more to have them lift the porch and replace the supports with fresh cinder blocks.  And this was going to take more time, which meant that we couldn’t paint anything because it could move again!

So, they came that same afternoon to remove the supports and replace them with temporary wooden ones while they poured concrete bases for the new blocks to go on.  This part was done the afternoon we first contacted them.

Then, another guy was supposed to come do the masonry work…but he was engaged in another job elsewhere, so it took four days for him to finally come and take care of it!

By the time it was done (on a Saturday morning…the weekend we took the kids to Columbia to be out of our hair while we finished this…), the blocks looked good and everything was solid.  It just took substantially longer than I wanted to get done!

Granted, you can’t make plans around construction, because “things happen.”  Still…I don’t have to like it…

Once the blocks were in place, we could finish the painting of the floorboards and trim, and also do all the landscaping we had planned.  Brooke picked up boxwood bushes, blue rug juniper, and sky pencil holly to go in the front from our local landscaping place, and we also had 100 cu. ft. of mulch dropped off.  (Side note: apparently 100 cu. ft. of mulch isn’t enough, so get 150 next time!) We struggled to find landscaping pavers we really liked, as multiple places in town didn’t have anything in “grey” and we didn’t really want to drive down to Sedalia, but thankfully we lucked into some for $1 each at Wal-mart, so that worked just fine!  

We put those in and did our best to secure them, though we didn’t use a shovel to dig a ditch for them like we probably should.  I’m hoping that they’ll settle out over the winter months and be fine for next year, otherwise I’ll knock them over while mowing…

The landscaping was mostly done by Saturday, but we had to wait until Sunday morning for the construction folks to remove the supports and drop the floor for us to finish painting and put the lattices back up.  Brooke also spent a substantial amount of time with a small paintbrush filling in the gaps in the floorboards to limit the water that could cause damage.  While she finished that up, I grilled some awesome steaks out back… 🙂

The next day after church, we put the railings back on, as well as the lattices.  The lattices went on alright, though they don’t fit quite as well as they did with the new supports.

That part wasn’t so shocking, but the railings proved more difficult than we’d expected.  Apparently the columns weren’t put back in exactly the right places, so we ended up having to saw them down a bit to make them fit appropriately.  I also had to run out and grab a few more brackets that would fit the railings better (because the ones we bought fit some railings, but not all railings…ug…).  Still, they’re a bit wobbly as they’ve always been, but they’re far more secure than they were before!

Finished product!  Those pencil holly should grow up to ~6 ft high, so we’ll have to trim them, but they’ll drive people toward the center of the stairs.  The plan is to remove that center railing once we get some time.  It’s falling apart and a coat of paint isn’t going to fix it.  We also switched around the furniture relative to where they used to be because we realized during the course of work on the lattices that the western side of the porch is actually longer than the eastern side, so it makes more sense to have the couch and chairs/table switched.

Lastly, because we were waiting for paint to dry, Brooke took it upon herself to finally, ultimately, gut the yucca plants.

Seriously, she’s been waiting for years to get rid of them.  When the bees were here, the yuccas provided some useful shelter in the winter, but without bees, we don’t need them!  They’re gone!

That’s it!  It took a lot longer, and a lot more money, than we’d originally hoped, but I suppose that’s to be expected with home improvement projects.  We’re happy with the finished product, at least!