Porch Painting

We chose the hottest two days in July to repaint the porch.

Matt insisted it needed to be done.  I felt it was absolutely fiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnneeee.

( I don't love painting... particularly spindles.)

Thankfully, I have helpers.

Of course, Sadie decided the most comfortable spot to lay her weary head was directly under the freshly painted railing, of all places.

The only before and after I thought to take was this one- contrasting the stair rails.  

I guess it may have needed it after all.

 Looking at this photo more closely,  I suspect Matt will make us restain the porch flooring this summer.

We'll choose the hottest days to do it, no doubt.

At it again (the porch project continues)

Matt has been at it again- setting his hands and talents to something and making it beautiful.  

The seemingly never-ending porch project continues after a brief winter hiatus (to rest and to raise money for the next step!) with the addition of railings.  We loved the porch without railings but it wouldn't have passed inspection had we not added railings (one edge is quite high). 

And besides, we have a little mover-and-shaker these days which would make a railing-less porch MUCH less relaxing.

Our porch is massive, wraps around the whole of two sides and is 12 feet wide.  It was going to cost a fortune to add even the cheapest railings using even the cheapest spindles just because there would need to be so many!  So Matt did what he often does- he started from scratch and did the brunt work himself.  He and his dad spent an entire day ripping, cutting, sanding and pre-drilling about a gazillion spindles and boards.  

The whole railing project cost just about $200.00 because of his hard work- which is the cost of just the most-basic spindles alone had we bought them at the store.

(I could do this allll day long.... stare at this handsome guy, hard at work.)

And *still* it isn't done, because probably next spring we will be painting the whole thing (oh.my.word. NIGHTMARE.) but it is 'complete' for a while. 

Here is it in all its' glory, enrobed in fog this morning:

And while we are on the subject of Papa projects:  here is another!

Matt told me he wanted to mulch around the locust trees by the milkhouse and maybe put a piece of old equipment he found down the hill in the woods on display.  He called it the ornamentation project.

He lured me into his plan when he said he would build a stone wall around it.

(Here I go again....)

As you can see, Matt's perpetual jeans are in need of some more attention.  If I made the habit of swearing, it would be these jeans that made me do it.

Oh look!  How tidy!  How crisp!  How clean looking!  Look at that stone wall!  

I love it just.like.this!

 But wait.

Oh yeah.

The equipment.

Which, by the way, went from ONE thing to TWO things.

And both things were WAAAAY bigger than I had envisioned.

Not sure I love the rusty heap o' junk look- but Matt does, so I guess that is that.

And it can't be worse than the rampant burdock that was there.  Right?  And....that stone wall!

That is TOTALLY worth it.

But then again, in the fog, even the heap o' rust looks almost...well, ornamental.

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.

The Porch Project Continues

Since the weather has warmed up, the porch project has resumed once again.

Matt (poor guy) has been spending every moment that he can working on it, which has been pretty slow-going when you work as much as Matt.  Saturdays are great but, even working all day long at it, having only one day a week to get much work done is very limiting.  

Matt took last week off, hoping that a few consecutive days of work would help to move things along.

And then WOOOOOOOOOOOOSH.  

He can build porches faster than I can blog about it! 

(This is a very photo-intensive post...but there is a lot of ground to cover!  Those of you uninterested in porch building, no worries...flowers and food and children posts will resume shortly.)

Scoping out the mini porch that has to come down...

and then doing it.

Then the posts and frame had to go up.  

Matt is fortunate to have his family willing to come and work with him every now and again.  His Dad was absolutely instrumental and has come over very often to help. to His brother John came over once too.

Rafters for the front.

He now has a seriously sexy farmer's tan going on.  Just sayin'.

Then it all had to happen again on the side of the house. 

Matt's other brother Nathan came over for a day too.  

See?  What'd I tell you about the farmer's tan?

The corner was the tricky part.

Then came the roof boards.  At least, I think that is what they are called...

Evening things up.

And then it was time for the steel roofing.

The big kids helped Matt too!  

By the end of the week, the roofing was up!  It went from plain deck to covered porch nearly in the space of a week!

 It isn't done yet...there is still ceiling, railings, stairs, paint and stain to do- but it is done enough for us to enjoy it!  We've been eating breakfast, lunch and dinners out there ever since.

My, what a week of vacation and a hard-working man can accomplish!