Porches

This construction project on our house has been going on since January. But this last week we finally finished the last of the real construction project. The new windows still need to be installed, but those will just replace these old drafty windows that were original in the house 114 years ago. This last construction phase was the replacement of our back porch. Below are pictures of this porch prior to the start of construction.

So, the porch was removed along with most of the brick patio that extended beyond the porch.

One additional problem we ran into was the old cistern that sat just behind and under the current kitchen. Unfortunately, one of the piers for the new porch needed to be placed in a place above this cistern. Consequently, 30 cubic yards of a mixture of cement and sand had to be pumped into this hole before we could proceed. At last we were able to pour the piers and place the foundation beams for the porch. This took a while and the entire porch was removed only after the piers for completed. Poor Brutus was used to charging out the back door and thus the first time he did this without warning the porch was gone, he fell the four feet and landed on his head. It didn't seem to hurt him too much, but he has been a bit more cautious in going out since then.

As the porch went up, Max and I started dreaming of actually getting it done. Below Max is sitting on our porch in progress, enjoying a glass of wine and imagining the finished product.

With good weather the porch continued up and showing us what we were hoping to see.

Day by day it looked more and more like the view our two dimensional blue prints.

The new brick work was put in place so the final steps could be put on

And the final wrap around steps were completed putting this phase behind us.

The final stage of our project is to get this old house painted. We've picked the colors and the painters start this week. It will be nice to get this old house looking its best again.