Front Porch Facelift

Before and After:




So here we have the much anticipated porch renovation pictures. You might recall that we took out bushes and put new landscaping in before leaving for Jamaica. It was clear after being gone for 2 weeks of straight rain here that our gutters weren't draining in the right direction. Water was pouring out of the endcap, instead of heading towards what should've been downhill to the downspout. This had turned our post-stump dirt into a quagmire. In order to fix the gutters, the roof of the porch had to be raised. It turns out that the gutters were hung correctly, but the huge slab of concrete that is our porch had sunk over time, taking with it the roof. This coincided with my parents coming up to visit. For our birtherversary they gave us a new storm door with the promise of installation help. While the storm door was being put in, someone leaned on a column of the porch (we blame Calvin) and what we thought was a bad situation became more immediate - the columns were completely rotted. So the day after they left we went to Advance Auto and bought two car jacks and set to work raising the porch roof in preparation for new columns. We had hoped that the outer casing of the column was rotten but that inside there would be a strong beam of support. Alas that was not to be so. As we jacked up the columns they fell apart into rotten piles. Now, after the project being stalled almost daily by more rain than any place outside of the Amazon should get, we're finally finished: new, stylish columns that opened up the feel of the porch and adequately support the now level roof, a new storm door, new paint on the interior door, pressure washed walls, new paint on the trim, new lights and doorbell switch, and new paint on the porch floor, and we couldn't be happier with the results.

Of course in the pictures it's to be noted that the landscaping is going to be an ongoing project that will span into Fall, as we continue to remove stumps and a bush or two, transplant things, and add edging and borders. We'll keep you posted on all that too!

The pictures that Chronicle the Journey are here.

Also I've posted some pictures from a hike we did to Bottom Creek Gorge. The waterfall didn't come out at all in the pictures because there wasn't much water, we were far away, and there's nothing for scale, but the wild blackberries were in bloom and abundant. There was a lot of wildlife along the hike, though only the snakes were too lazy to run before we could get the camera out! Enjoy.