rediscovering a porch

   I had wanted to change a few things on our porch-move the bear, add a bench, and get the floor boards more even. I had no idea how much work this was going to be!

As you can see from these two pictures, the siding was added AFTER the porch. It was not moved over so the siding would be put on properly, but the siding was put on AROUND the porch. You also see the side of the porch (the cats use the pillars as scratching posts, which is not as stressful as it may seem!) in the left hand photo is actually IN the window. The cats appreciate being able to look directly in, but it is odd since the symmetry is off.

You may have also noticed the bottom rail on the right is on the floor of the porch. Steve had 'fixed' this on the other side and the pieces facing the front. It was too hard to get the leaves and snow off thru the stairwell.

 Here it is with the boards evenly spaced and sanded. We desperately need a new door (it was the door which got me grumpy about needing to get this thing fixed.) and hope to find one this next weekend. One of the ways to clean out between the boards on a deck or porch is with a butter knife. You run the knife along the space and the debris usually comes out. Since the spaces were so strange, it was not as easy as it might sound. Some spaces were as wide as a pencil, some were too slim for the butter knife blade. When I cleaned out under the threshold, the knife sunk into the area about halfway up  the handle! Now, it might be dry rot or it might be a space in the door frame which was not filled in properly. Or, knowing this  house, it is probably both. In the bottom photo (which for some stupid reason is not turned properly), you see things used to make boards spaced evenly. The carpenter pencils have a screw attached with tape (this is so the boards are spaced the width of a pencil and the pencils don't fall down the cracks) and you see part of a pry bar. Old boards warp and need help moving.

 I was able to apply one of the many forms of Thompson's water sealer stuff to the sanded boards. It worked wonderfully and although the boards look dark and dirty, they are now water proof!

The final (mostly) product. Of course, it was dark-Jon's been taking the camera out for harvest! The door is still needing replaced and I had some sealer left, so I water sealed Wilson.

  He looks so much better! It appears the stain is to last for 10 years, but he had been scoured by the ravages of dust and sunshine. I figured it was time to preserve him again. And he has so many cracks, it couldn't hurt. Could it?  The bench isn't done yet, either. I was able to get some brown tile this last weekend and will finish off the edges. Moses and Maxwell appear to like having the bench on the front porch. They like sleeping on it! 

So, there is the saga of the just moving a couple of things!  Next time I'll know better. Maybe! 

(also, the blog itself is being odd. On the creating part, it looks nice and has things lined up very well. On the preview part, it has the photos in a line, none are next to each other. I can't fix it.)