Our Side Porch: Roof Construction

Combining past posts about the side porch into one….

We’ve wanted to build a side porch for quite a while now.  Hubby is the king of procrastination when it comes to home improvement projects.  He’s not lazy.  He’s a perfectionist.  He gets “paralyzed by perfection”.  What I mean by that is he has to have it all completely figured out in his head before he starts a project.  And being a perfectionist, having the perfect plan is important and almost impossible.

We decided last winter that we were going to finally build a side porch this summer.  I started dreaming of a hot tub.

We lived in a trailer for 2 years while we saved money & built our house on this property.  The side porch that we had was the old porch from our trailer.  It was supposed to be temporary.   That was 12 years ago.  lol  It is ugly & falling apart.  (And it won’t hold a hot tub!)

Before Pic - Side Porch

So we got an estimate for the cement base and once we got over our initial sticker shock, they got started.

        

So then we got estimates for a roof.  People are insane.  Seriously!  One was $6800 and the other estimate was $7300.  For a roof.  Umm…. no.  I don’t know what the heck they were planning to do for all the money.  We want a simple roof.  So now we are doing it ourselves.  Those prices sure motivated hubby let me tell you!  lol  My father-in-law had back surgery a few months ago and is still having a lot of pain.  He is normally the one that would do this type of stuff with hubby.  I told him I would help of course.  I’m a country girl – I can stand on a ladder and use a drill.  So that is what we have been doing.  I even put a few lag bolts in yesterday.  :)   If we hadn’t started getting along, I can tell you for sure that we would not be tackling this project together.  That is for certain!  It’s been going pretty well.  Kids even helped yesterday and were quite proud.

Porch Roof Construction 10/14/11

Yes, that is a hot tub on the porch :)  It is not hooked up yet.  We bought it used, scrubbed it out good, hooked it up and there were a bunch of leaks.  Ha.  Hubby ordered new gaskets etc and now it is just waiting for him to have time.  The roof has taken priority.  He said there is no way he could sit  in the hot tub and relax while looking at the unfinished porch work waiting for him.

I am thrilled that we are actually doing this.  It’s been in our plan for several years now.  Picture the finished porch….  Roof, Hot tub, Grill, Table, Chairs, Candles, Friend, Family, Good Food, Wine :)

We have a fire pit in another part of our yard that we plan to move near the porch also.  We spend a lot of time at the fire pit on summer evenings.  I think we are going to give away a swing set that the kids have outgrown and put it there.  So exciting!

Previous Porch Posts:
Side Porch Progress
Side Porch Update

Related articles

• Our Side Porch (toughwords.wordpress.com)

Painting the Stairway

He is painting the stairway – right this very moment!

Happy Dance :)

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Look!

 

Side Porch Update

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Continued from Side Porch Progress……

8/10/11 – Getting there :)

Porch in progress...

Related Posts – Our Side Porch Update (10/16/11)

Side Porch Progress

We decided this past winter that we were going to finally build a side porch this summer.  I started dreaming of a hot tub.

Often, my hubby has great plans, but he gets stuck.  Things don’t get done because he over-thinks it to death.  He is paralyzed by perfection.  I think I stole that phrase from Flylady.  Another reason things don’t get done is because this house is not his priority. Tractors are his time-stealing hobby.

We lived in a trailer for 2 years while we saved money & built our house on this property.  The side porch that we have now was the old porch from our trailer.  It was supposed to be temporary.   That was 12 years ago.  lol  It is ugly & falling apart.  (And it won’t hold a hot tub!)

We talked and actually agreed without a big disagreement about how we want it.  Concrete base with a roof.  Not fancy, but big and functional.  He wants it to be a raised porch because “when we are old we won’t want to be fighting the stairs to get out to our porch”.  Awe.  I don’t care if it is raised or if we have to walk down stairs to get to it.  I just want a nice side porch where we can have our hot tub, a grill, a nice big table, etc.  I want our firepit nearby so it can be a great place to get-together with friends…..  I do need a roof or we won’t use it nearly as much cuz we’ll be sweating to death under the sun.  I hate to be hot.

I asked him several weeks if it could be done by the end of June so we could enjoy it all summer.  I wanted to put some sort of timeline out there so it would not just be another project that got put off.  Well it won’t be done by the end of June.  But the first step has been taken.

6/20/11 – He called to get an estimate for the block-laying / cement pouring.  Do not actually have an estimate yet.  But he called them.  Yay.

6/21/11 – Contractor called us and left message to call him back.

6/22/11 – I called them back.  They came to the house and measured & talked to hubby about the project.  Will get back to us with an estimate.

6/28/11 – Still waiting for estimate.  :(

6/29/11 – Got the estimate today.  Umm… will have to let that sink in a while. lol  Of course it is more than we were expecting it to be.  Yikes! Now hubby says if we have to spend this much for just the base, there will be no roof this year.  I really want a roof this year.  I have dreams of relaxing in the hot tub  this winter while it snows all around me.  Around me, not on me!  Ha.  Hopefully we can make it work.

7/15/11 – Still waiting.  We are now waiting for them to give us a start date.  We are on their list.  Getting there I guess??

7/25/1 – I talked to them last week.  They were gonna call us with a start date by Friday.  It’s Monday.  Still no start date.  I think they are stalling because of the heat wave.  Can’t say I blame them for not wanting to work in 100 degree weather but I wish they’d get back to me!

7/29/11 – They started digging!  Yea!  I am so excited.  We had a big ole thunderstorm roll through and they dropped everything and cleared out after only being here about 2 hours…. they’ll be back, right?  RIGHT?

Before Pic:

Before Pic - Side Porch

Continued….Side Porch Update