That left Jim at home to work on the porch himself. He's sort of in a rush because of his Bonneville salt flats speed week trip - he wants to have the porch "done" before he goes. That makes our August schedules slightly out of sink... I just didn't want him to put on the deck boards without me!
Luckily, he obliged. Instead, he did a bunch of bracing and bracketing, and things that don't make for great pictures. But the floor is much more sturdy now.
Here's where the rotted out deck frame just above the stairs has been replaced, 2x4s have been added for blocking, and flashing under the front door was added.
Here's where he added reinforcement to the floor joists:
He also took one of the posts down to take a look at the rot underneath. It's a bit... hmmm... cavernous. Here's a picture I took of the bottom of the post:
We do have some Bondo type epoxy from Homer, and John (the contractor neighbor) gave us another epoxy system that he uses, but then Jim found this site that specializes in rot repair: The Rot Doctor
I told him to go for it and order the stuff up.
The other part of the plan is to maybe cut off some of the bottom length and make a base plate out of hardi-plank or something. Jim made a prototype of that and routed the edges to make it pretty. I'm just jealous I didn't get to use my router first! but comforted in the knowledge that I will get plenty of use out of it...
Monday evening, when I got back, we sat out on the framing and made a list of things that needed to be done (I love lists). I won't bore you with it here. But one change we are thinking of is to switch from overhead lighting to a light next to the door. Jim tells me he thinks he can do that wiring fairly easily now that the floor and ceiling are out. That opens up the choices. I'm currently thinking of this one from Rejuvenation:
Speaking of my favorite reproduction lighting & hardware store... I remembered that they had a retail location in Portland. It was an easy sell to get the people I was with at the wedding to do a side trip. It was fantastic - so great to see it all on display. They had a lot more than what they sell in the catalogue, and I was able to talk with a couple of the folks to get a better idea of what they could do for me.
Although I do have to make one complaint... I was trying to talk to the guy in the salvage area - I bought this door lever for the bathroom a few years ago at Brimfield,
and I've never seen another one like it. I'd love to find another one similar to it, so I tried to ask him about it. He didn't seem very interested in talking to me, and totally dropped our conversation while I was in the middle of it to talk to some girl who walked in. A little wierd and rude. Everyone else was very helpful, though.
Last update is on Taya - she is doing soooo much better! We stopped giving her the pain meds, she's eating her dry food again and drinking water. She's back to being very lively. Still has to wear the E-collar for another week. But I'm so happy she's doing well!
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