It has been a while since my last entry, Memorial Day was here and that always throws me off, it takes me days to recover from a long weekend like that. Before that, isolation got to me and instead of reaching out and writing about it I draw back into my own private world.
Anyway, I finally took the bull by the horns and accepted the fact that we will not be moving homes anytime soon(not with these house prices!) and that if I want a house with a porch I will have to build one myself! Not with my own hands of course ha ha! Although many many moons ago I wouldn't have to think twice about that, I just did it.
Our neighbor's house has been on the market for 2 years and it finally sold last week. I don't know the details but my guess it is was for way less than they would have liked.
So we considered our options and as things go in our household we considered and considered but no action was taken. Last Monday I decided that it was time and jumped to Angieslist to check out the best contractors for the job.
Luckily we have a large area in front of the house that is suitable to build a porch.
This pic, taken last December when we had a pack of snow, shows the small front porch we already have and the 2 front windows, the right one is W. 's office the left is my office. The new porcht is going to run the whole length of the house which is 21 feet and will be about 6 feet wide with a white railing and ..... a trellis! (for my Dutch readers a trellis is a 'pergola'). The roof sticks out from the house and attached to that will be the trellis.
It will look something like this:
But not with those columns ;-) and no stairs either. ;-) Just wanted to show the railing and the trellis.
We choose nice composed material, that needs no maintenance and is surprisingly in the color of the siding. A greenish/gray for the deck, for the railing and trellis we choose white that goes nicely with the front doors and the windows.
It's going to be great, I can already imagine sitting there with my morning espresso or afternoon cuppa, evening coffee, in my rocking chair and the nice porch furniture I will need to find. I'd love to have some nice Adirondack chairs I think they will look great.
We'll just sit there and watch the world go by and have more contact with neighbors. At the back it's nice but isolated, very private, which can be a good thing but every now and than you just want to sit and watch and have some human contact.
The price was very reasonable and with this economy they are all looking for work and had competitive pricing, they can start next week and it will be finished in 3 days!
Will keep you posted how things are going and post photo's.
Next project will be the installation of tube skylights, the hallway is very dark because there are no windows, a few of those tube skylights will open it up and let the light in.
The very thought of realizing a small part of my American dream(having a home with a porch) has perked me up and I'm so looking forward to it!
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3 comments:
Sounds to me that that is just what you need for the summer evenings. Now all you need is a rocker and a quilt.
Meant to ask. Did you ever contact Mary Johnson of Heartstrings?
Hi Clare,
Indeedy a rocker would be great, working on the that one and the quilt is also on my list.
Yes I hopped over to Mary Johnson's site and looked at her work but have not decided to contact her yet because another friend offered to make me a quilt.
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