Building a New Front Porch
Originally Posted August 10th, 2020.
We spent a lot of time on our front porch, especially because we have a great couch to lay on tucked in the corner. It became apparent after we completed the painting of our house that the porch needed to go. We specifically had them skip painting the wood because we knew we would replace it sooner or later - but sooner came faster than we expected. We started out by getting masonry quotes to straighten out the three brick columns. I figured we might as well start with great bones if we are really going to do this.
Our first mason quote came in at TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. I swear I think Drew and I both fell over. He also told us that he wouldn't even be able to start the project until 2021. Looking back, I think he just wasn't interested in what we needed... why not just say that instead? Thankfully my dad had just sourced a mason to help him fix his chimney and he was satisfied with both the quality of the work and the price so we gave this guy a call. He came out within a week to check out the columns and got to work soon after. He was a fraction of the cost of the original quote and completed the job two weeks after we contacted him. We were super impressed with his work and thankful it didn't cost $10k!
He even replaced the front and side wood that supports the porch and feeds into the masonry for us. The best part about tearing out your porch during a pandemic is that you have plenty of time and resources to get it done fast. The worst part about tearing our your porch during a pandemic is that one you do it, you'll realize treated wood is sold out everywhere and you'll be unable to complete the project. So, now we wait! We need to sit down and weight our options which currently are 1.) wait on treated wood, 2.) source and treat the wood ourselves 3.) try to source composite decking and spend more money upfront.
UPDATE October 20th, 2020:
WOW, probably never would have guessed that this project would take us over 4 months, but it's finally so close to complete. When we tore out the porch in June, we had no idea we'd have trouble finding wood, oh, and also that us both going back to work would make us busier than ever before.
Thankfully, we've made progress on weekends and we're sooo close to checking this one off of the list. We started by ripping out all of the existing decking back in June, and then it stood board-less for quite some time! I was surprised no one complained.
In early September, finally found some time to head to Menards to see what kind of wood they had in stock. We picked out a 2 x 6 red cedar untreated plank. We knew that we knew we'd have to treat the boards ourselves, and we soon got to work painting them in our backyard. Thankfully our house painters left us with a huge excess of house paint (our house is wood shingles) and we repurposed that to treat the wood boards.
* Side note, Menards is offering 11% off of everything through 10/24, which saved us a BUNCH of money on the wood. Sure, you have to use the rebate at Menards, but with a 107 year old house, I know we'll find a use for it.
After finally getting all of the top boards painted, we picked a Sunday and blocked it off with my dad to get them installed. We bought the largest bucket (25lbs) of screws I've ever seen, and spend half a day screwing them into boards. My dad brought over his driver, basically a fancy drill that puts a lot more power behind the screw, and it made installing the boards a breeze. Drew might just be getting one for Christmas - not that I'm sure which project we have left that needs one, haha!
I also should mention that we choose to leave up the existing porch frame, and just reinforced it with new wood. It made getting this project complete faster, but made me feel much better about the structure of the porch.
After we finished installing the boards (we may have been a hair short - don't ask Drew about that). We painted them with the red trim house paint we had leftover. We gave the boards two coats on top to protect them from the elements, and plan to paint yearly to keep up with them!
Drew and my dad made a quick trip during the week to Menards to pick up the remaining wood, and wood for the stairs, and went to work last weekend finishing both parts up, while I worked. I'm so excited with the stairs - I love the colors, and it just really means we're so close to getting this task completed. We're going to head out this week to choose our railings and get those ordered so we can treat them as well. Stay tuned for more updates!
Supplies Used:
Benjamin Moore Exterior Paint:
Main House: Tate Olive: HC-112
Neutral Trim: Dry Sage: 2142-40
Red Trim: Spanish Red: 1301
Decking: 2 x 6 x 10 Red Cedar Planks
Premium Exterior Deck Screws
Accessories:
A super old rotating saw we found in our garage from the previous owners, with a new blade that worked wonderfully
