[e@me]
Whazsup today?
forgotten but not lost

intro
...from the start
electrical work
deconstruction
cement work
a minor detour
construction

Mud Porch Project

The brass nameplate on the new front screen door seems appropriate, "Bless This Old House" but it fails to mention the rest of the story because... "This old house needs a lot of work".

Back in 1998 when I moved in, the house had that normal lived in look. I knew there would be a few minor repairs to deal with, I didn't think minor would grow into major. As time went on I found out that was the case all right and then some. In fact, a whole lot of "some". Since then I have remodeled the entire interior. Now, I'm working on the exterior and things are looking good. This summer I had a brainstorm of an idea for a project. This brainstorm was more of a "got to do something about this problem" although it was going to be a fun project. When you get a chance to create something new from the old it's always interesting to see what develops during the next days work. This project was going to deal with the old and dilapidated rear entrance of the house. The floor of the entrance, which was commonly called a "mud porch" back in the good old days, was giving way and it was about time I did something about it. I surmised that the old style entrance/porch that housed the floor had to go with it, for two reasons. One it served no purpose and two, it would make a great space for a deck. So the project was born.

This was not going to be a simple project. In addition to the obvious work, there would be collateral damage. Things to be fixed that lie in wait to be discovered, it would be like any other normal remodeling project but far from simple depending on what potential problems would be uncovered. Remember this, what you start out to do and what you end up doing are always different, it's a given, it's guaranteed. When you start with a fix for one thing and you end up fixing several other things, because of the original fix, the chain reaction can get pretty deep and chew up what resources you have budgeted. Like I said, it was going to be interesting by the time it was all done and I knew it was the type of project worth keeping track of so, I took some pictures and kept track of my receipts. The pics should give you an idea of how things started out, what happened in between and how it all ended up.

Now, when I started out on this mission, I figured on getting three major things accomplished. The first was to move the electrical service from the mud porch into the kitchen. The second was to tear off the porch and the third, was building a new deck to replace the porch. It all happened, plus more than you can imagine and here's how it all took shape from the start...