The Porch Gets A Floor

We started on the porch last weekend but most of our time was spent on boring projects that don't do much for the aesthetics of the house. But now the concrete is hauled away to the dump and the footings for the porch have been poured. We're ready to start building.

The first step was to get the framing in place. Fortunately my brother and his fiancee had a lot of free time during these last few days until graduation and helped us get the posts up and the floor framing in.

We had family coming into town before my brother's graduation so we were in a rush to get the porch floor installed before they arrive. After doing a little research we decided on ChoiceDek composite. I preferred the look of some Trex on clearance but it had terrible reviews because of mold problems. The ChoiceDek had much better reviews and was slightly cheaper so I think we'll be happy with it. We installed it using a the Camo system jig so the screw holes are not visible..

View from the street

Now that we have a good surface for the ladders it's time to start working on the porch roof. We've got family coming for graduation and mother's day but we're going to buy our materials and see how much we can get accomplished over the weekend.

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Our New House - It Might Just Be Home

I recently announced that we had sold our home in Helena and will be moving to my hometown in July. We did some house-hunting over Easter weekend and I'm please to report success. We are in the process of buying our latest home: I know you can't see it well behind the trees. I'm so excited to have actual trees on the property. The house itself is nestled against the base of a hill which will block our views of the sunset but the east-facing front porch should offer some wonderful sunrises. And here's a sneak peek of our view. I won't be posting any more photos until we've actually closed on the house. Closing is still two months away and a lot could change before then. Still, I look forward to sharing our latest project.

Sold

We sold our house last week. This may come as a surprise since the house wasn't even for sale. We weren't planning to move. Everything in the house was designed with the idea that we would be living here for years. But sometimes God makes it abundantly clear that He has other plans. In the course of just a few days Luke was offered a chance to move to his company branch in my hometown and we met a family looking for a house in our neighborhood. And now our house is under contract. Closing is scheduled for mid-July so I will have a little time to recover from having the baby, but until she arrives I've been packing up all our non-essentials. We have already started looking for our next home; maybe it will be a home we get to enjoy for decades. We'll just have to wait and see.

Repainted

It might not feel like we've accomplished all that much since buying the house last summer. What progress we have been able to make comes during naps and after the kiddo is down for the night. But despite having to work in nap-sized increments, we have been able to get quite a bit done. Take for example the house paint. The siding was rough shape. A few more years and we would not have been able to salvage it. Before - Rust colored stain needed a fresh coat years ago After-Paint provides much better protection for the brittle pine siding. Before After Garage Before - Original combed cedar siding was in terrible shape after years of mistreatment. Garage After - It looks better, but the siding needs to be replaced. The new paint will buy us some time until we're ready to tackle that project. Stable Before - Probably hadn't been painted in 20+ years. Stable After - It took 8 gallons of paint for a 16x30 structure. ...

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