Porch Floors and Walls

As promised a post about the progress of the porch. As you can see alot of progress since the footings post I made. These pixs are from this past couple weekends. So now there about ready to put up the roof trusses and sheathing. Hopefully they will get that all done this coming weekend. It's getting colder outside and we need to get this project DONE! Next week the roofers are coming to re roof the house. SO we have to get this done so they can roof the porch too. I think they can get it done. depending on the weather. I think this weekend is suppose to be fairly nice(no rain). That will help! Here is a few pixs of Doug getting the existing roof ready to attach the porch to it. He had to tear off some of the existing material. As you can see the footings are in and have been ok'ed from inspection so they started adding the boards to make the flooring and decking.

See in this pix BELOW......this is the side the deck will be on coming off the porch. As you can see the green lids in the dirt? That's our sprinkler valves and we had to access it so we couldn't put the deck over them. Well, turns out we didn't like how big our deck was.....so we are thinking of extending the deck over this area and make it work so we can still access our sprinkler valves. Of course, we figured we would do this after the fact. So maybe in the spring we will extend the deck over this area. We are in too much hurry to get the porch part done first. So we thought to wait it out.

Here is a pix a week later....of the walls are up. Almost ready to put the trusses on.

Here is a pix of our decking inside the porch. Doug needed to put these on first. So he could use the ladder inside to put the roof trusses on. So here a good pix of the maintenance free decking we picked out. Ha~Muffin was scared at first to step onto it. She is so goofy. A few pixs of Muffin getting use to the decking and flooring. This is so nice I can't even express how happy I am about this decking. I haven't been able to walk outside our patio door for ten years. Ha ha ha...ever since we moved in.........we NEVER did a thing with this area. We never could just walk outside to our backyard from the house. It's super nice!!! We still have to make steps from the decking but this is progress for now. Hee! I'm giddy with JOY!

Here is a pix of Aaron enjoying the decking too. I told him to do a jig and dance out on the deck floor. The three photos are of Aaron doing a jig dance on the new floor. Ha! Let's just say we all were happy with the progress. I can't wait til were completely done. The inside could take some time but at least we can plastic it off and heat it inside and Doug can work in cold if need be. The porch itself won't be very big(average size for Minnesota porches). However, it will be tall vaulted porch. The vaulted roof will make it seem larger. I plan on putting Bead board ..and not sure what color to make it(white or color). I was thinking WHITE but I saw this home that had painted green(a nice green color....antique like color)bead board and it was sooo cute! Will see? We will be putting a ceiling fan up ....and that is essential as that side of the house gets HOT. Should be fun......I have to wait a whole winter to enjoy this thing. Can you believe that? That will make it that more exciting waiting right? Gives me time to work on color schemes and furniture Ideas etc...etc......but I can't wait for our 4th of July. This porch will make that entertaining so much easier. As we use to eat in our screen gazebo tent...which was fun but bothersome................not attached to the house etc....so this is something to look forward too. I'm excited!

SOD and MORE SOD

I call this Progress! Finally getting around to starting our Porch and Deck project...YIPPEEE! This is going to be cool to journal online our progress on the porch. Here is one of our first steps-To cut out the sod in the area where the porch will go.

In the photo where all the dirt is...will be how big the deck and porch will extend from the house. The Porch will continue on from the little roof line we have going by our patio door. The deck will be along side the porch on the side you see in this photo.


Here is the trusty sod cutting machine we rented. Works slick to cut away the sod in fast easy strips.




Doug's giving the thumbs up...........I think he was just happy it wasn't a million degrees hot like the previous day(Ha)! Sunday was alot less humid and great for cutting sod and moving it. Dave(Doug's Dad) was here to help cut the sod. Super nice of Dave to help out like he did. Thanks Dave........all your help really really means alot to us! Of course, Aaron helped out with the "guys" and had a blast driving his "pretend" truck around all the sod piles. ha!

Piles and piles of Sod......................what is one to do with all these wonderful piles of fresh grass?

Here is Aaron driving his "truck" around the piles of sod.





This is what you do with all these piles of Freshly watered SOD..........take them to a place you never got around to seeding. Ha.......great deal! Doug never got around to seeding this side of the new garage. So this was perfect amount of sod for that area. Only thing is-the reason Doug never seeded this area......there is no sprinkler's set up in that area. He was always going to put a new zone in but never did. So he will have to hand sprinkle this area for awhile. BLAK! Especially with the real bad drought we've been having this won't be easy task. Hopefully we can keep the sod moist so it will grow into place.

What does Aaron do while Doug and Dave are working on the sod? He drives his little black truck around the driveway. Notice he has all his "little Treasures" in the back of his pickup. Ha! He's so cute that way. Oh....I threw in a photo of my hostas under the tree by the new garage. This is what we do with all our hostas we transplanted from near the house. They love it under this tree. I have some Daylilies too and that purple leaf plant(can't remember the name of it off hand?)

What does Muffin do while all this is going on??? Ha...she looks out the window and wishes she could be underfoot. She's too much of a cuss to let out while doing all this work. Don't worry she had her share of fun afterwords. She got to sniff her "potty spots" in the sod by the new garage. Since that is the sod where she would pee pee by the house. The spots got moved to the other location. Ha!

My MIL will enjoy these photos as she can see all that Dave and Doug worked on all weekend long. I am just happy for some progress. Doug had hopes of drilling in the footings but ran out of time. He has hopes of getting that done this week and than starting on the deck. Once the footings are inspected. I will keep everyone updated with photos when new progress happens.