The Porch is Almost Done

Happy Sunday Evening to all of my friends out there in Readerland. This has been one busy weekend for yours truly. I had hoped to be able to do some playing, but it was all work for this dull boy. Fortunately it was all work that gave me some satisfaction.


Friday I had taken the day off of work to chisel the front of the house and get it ready to start building. This picture shows my lovely old porch (the concrete mound) and the spot where I chiseled the exterior of my concrete house.

Yesterday I already told you how JC and I got the deck all framed up. And I already told you how we got his shower door in. So I'm going to start right up with today. For starters, the weather geniuses (genii) called for thunderstorms all day. If by thunderstorms they meant overcast with a light drizzle around 5, then they were dead on. JC came over around 7:30 and we got to work on that porch.

Once we got the first of three stringers cut, it became very apparent that we needed something to fasten them to. The fascia (the outside board around the deck, or face board) was a 2-by-8 which didn't give us anything to screw the stringers to, so off to Home Shitpot we went. We picked up a 2-by-12, which I promptly dropped on my big toe. Not cool, I might lose my toenail (sorry for the detail). What made me extra mad was that I made a conscious decision this morning not to wear my steel-toe shoes. Dumbass. I changed when we got back.


JC got the stringers all cut up, and we started to mount them to the deck. IMMEDIATELY, you could see that they were going to hit the bottom stair of the original steps. Of course, the stair is an 8 inch thick slab of concrete with a big fat steel pole down through it. No moving that thing. So we did what we could and ultimately cut out the bottom stair to work around the concrete. It was a pain, but it came out alright (for now). At this point, JC had to split. Click the picture for a better view of how they needed to be cut around the concrete.

After he left, I finished getting the last stringer on, and put the treads on the first few stairs to keep them square. I liked the look of that so much I decided to cut the boards for the deck, then call it quits. After the first few were cut, I figured I might as well attach a few to get a feel for how it would look. So far, the thunderstorms were nowhere to be found, so I just kept working.

I got about 4 boards down when it started to sprinkle. I quickly put away any tools I wasn't using and kept working. Before I knew it, I had all of the deck boards on and it looks FANTASTIC. I'm actually short one board, but I knew that was going to happen. At that point, I put the rest of the tools away, cleaned up the detritus of the day, moved a lawn chair onto the porch and finished my iced coffee in the rain. Suh-weet.



After I finished with all that, I was pretty much bushed. I had dinner then dozed in the recliner. I'm trying to whip out this entry real quick before my eyelids make their final descent. Nope, my laptop battery died and I had to finish it up Monday morning. Either way, you got your story.

I have to pick up a few items today to be able to finish the jobby job, then I'll be done and ready to have it inspected. If all goes well, I'll get the thumb's up and I can get back to playing with all of my new summer toys.

Over and Out,
Old Coot