The Porch Project continues...

After our vacation, Matt had a few more precious vacation days to do whatever he wished to do.  

Can you guess what that was?

Any?

Guesses?

He wanted to work.  Specifically, on the porch.  

Matt had made a ton of progress on the porch project this spring, getting the whole roof up and metal sheeting put on.  But then, right when he was on a roll, I said "WOAH- hold up thar, pal.  We need WOOD for WINTER!  I am NOT freezing my patooti off this year!"

So the porch project had to, necessarily, be put on hold. 

We've split over 18 face cord of wood for winter throughout the summer.  We will likely need 4 more  face cord split, but we are at a place where we could comfortably resume porch work without fear of being totally unprepared for cold weather.

Frankly, I kinda loved the porch just like it was.  

But Matt insisted it needed fascia and ceiling and lights, etc. and in retrospect, I guess he was probably right.  ;-)

He began with ceiling work.  Electrical boxes, soffit.  The soffit, my friends, was stinkin' expensive- more than even the steel roofing!  

Every time I have to scrounge around to find money to pay for porch supplies I keep telling myself this is a huge investment of money but it is also a huge investment of happy for plenty of decades in our future.  DECADES.  

And how blessed we are to have been able to do it while the children were young enough to still be able to spend many years enjoying it.  

Matt had plenty of helpers...which is another thing of joy for me.  It will be fun to look back at little Judah helping hand stuff over to Papa.

Or the toothless grins of sparkly girls.

Let's just linger here a moment...

shall we?

Yes, Mattie, I *did* just post that photograph.  Love you!  Muah!

When the ceiling was up, then it was time to paint.

This picture cracks me up.  

Firstly, I really dislike talking on the telephone-it is one of my least favorite things in the world- so I avoid it at all costs. How fitting that Matt snapped a picture of me chatting away on the phone like an everyday busybody the very moment a neighbor called to ask a quick question.  

Also- I am 26 weeks pregnant here but from the looks of things, I only grow babies in my upper arm and chin area.  

Chin babies.  

(You know you are jealous!)

Next was putting in the REAL stairs (as opposed to reattaching the old, ugly stairs just as a quick and easy way to get on the porch in the meantime...see first photo)

Unlike his impatient, half-hearted wife who encouraged him not to make things so difficult and "just put the stairs on the grass for goodness'sake!", he did things the right way and put down stone first.

I wanted nice wide stairs- so they stretch almost 6 feet across.  A true southern porch.

We still have a *few* more things to do: rehanging the siding that had to come off directly below the porch roof and installing a few lights.  And putting in railing (hopefully next spring.  Our bank account is begging for it to be next spring!)

But it the meantime, 

Our front porch sitting has gotten a whole lot more elegant.