Off with her porch!
That recent shot of nice weather we had on Sun./Mon. seemed to have invigorated my home improvement gene, because I spent the majority of those two days knocking down my hideous front porch. This was a job I've long desired to do, yet it had always been near the bottom of my 'to do' list. Things like plumbing and wiring have been and still are more of a priority. Yet after a winter filled with heavy downpours, and I, growing tired of placing my boots and shoes away from all the known 'wet spots' of my seive-like porch roof, got a a touch of the spring cleaning bug and went to town with sledgehammer and wrecking bar.
This task was to prove itself beneficial in both the physical and mental realms, as it gave me a moderate shot of exercise, and managed to cleanup a winter's worth of accumulating cobwebs in my mind... Besides, for some reason I always do my best thinking with a hammer in my hand. Not to mention the added plus-- that I got to smash things (a guy-thing, no doubt)!
As you can see, this was a poor excuse for a porch-- Leaky roof aside, I hated its asymmetrical offset to the rightside 'look'. Not to mention, the porch's 'footprint' was too narrow-- All this I intend to remedy, bit by bit. Confession: The out of place Victorian railing was added by me, and learning from my faux pas, I am slowly replacing all overly oppulent excesses of that period, with plainer, though more appropriate (to a bungalow cotta
ge home) 'Craftsman' styling.
My little project immediately ran into problems as all such endeavors tend to do, no matter what the scale. I had intended to do this on the low cost/no cost level, as I am layed off from my job during the winter months; yet I discovered quite soon that my old faithful stepladder wasn't quite tall enough to access the roof; so I made a trip to my employer's shop in Ann Arbor to borrow one of my company's ladders-- only to find that they were already being borrowed by my boss, who was working on his own place....... Grrr. Trumped by the company president! At that point I didn't feel like traveling out to Manchester, where my brother lives, to borrow his. So, a trip to the Home Depot and 100 bucks later-- I'm on my porch roof.
Big mistake. Just moments after crawling up onto the thing to begin removing shingles ( I had previously removed the door and windows), I felt several nails pull from where they had been driven through the rafter into the gable end of the house; and the whole structure dropped under my weight nearly an inch. Porchy didn't have to tell me twice..... down from the roof I crawled. That left me working from several spot locations on the ladder-- having to reposition it a multitude o
f times to facilitate my reach.
Bitching aside, I managed to de-shingle and cut/knock apart the decrapit thing in about two days. As you can see from the photos-- I think they speak best (and yes, the one picture with a roof-chunk leaning across the window WAS a close shave!)
. OK, I think that's enough man and hammer tales, I'll post something completely different next time!
This task was to prove itself beneficial in both the physical and mental realms, as it gave me a moderate shot of exercise, and managed to cleanup a winter's worth of accumulating cobwebs in my mind... Besides, for some reason I always do my best thinking with a hammer in my hand. Not to mention the added plus-- that I got to smash things (a guy-thing, no doubt)!
As you can see, this was a poor excuse for a porch-- Leaky roof aside, I hated its asymmetrical offset to the rightside 'look'. Not to mention, the porch's 'footprint' was too narrow-- All this I intend to remedy, bit by bit. Confession: The out of place Victorian railing was added by me, and learning from my faux pas, I am slowly replacing all overly oppulent excesses of that period, with plainer, though more appropriate (to a bungalow cotta
ge home) 'Craftsman' styling.My little project immediately ran into problems as all such endeavors tend to do, no matter what the scale. I had intended to do this on the low cost/no cost level, as I am layed off from my job during the winter months; yet I discovered quite soon that my old faithful stepladder wasn't quite tall enough to access the roof; so I made a trip to my employer's shop in Ann Arbor to borrow one of my company's ladders-- only to find that they were already being borrowed by my boss, who was working on his own place....... Grrr. Trumped by the company president! At that point I didn't feel like traveling out to Manchester, where my brother lives, to borrow his. So, a trip to the Home Depot and 100 bucks later-- I'm on my porch roof.
Big mistake. Just moments after crawling up onto the thing to begin removing shingles ( I had previously removed the door and windows), I felt several nails pull from where they had been driven through the rafter into the gable end of the house; and the whole structure dropped under my weight nearly an inch. Porchy didn't have to tell me twice..... down from the roof I crawled. That left me working from several spot locations on the ladder-- having to reposition it a multitude o
f times to facilitate my reach.
Bitching aside, I managed to de-shingle and cut/knock apart the decrapit thing in about two days. As you can see from the photos-- I think they speak best (and yes, the one picture with a roof-chunk leaning across the window WAS a close shave!)
. OK, I think that's enough man and hammer tales, I'll post something completely different next time!
posted by Rob at 4:32 PM
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