Do It Yourself

May 31, 2012

About 6 weeks ago, my husband and I decided we wanted to screen in our porch. It seemed like a relatively simple home renovation since the porch already had a roof, railings, and window-size dividers. I bet we could do this in a few weekends! Hmmmm, it’s thoughts like those that are the down fall of many a do-it-yourselfer!

We were out on the porch considering where to begin when a big rain storm hit. "Gee, did YOU notice all those roof leaks before? Me neither! I guess we had best replace the roof FIRST." So, with new premade porch roof sections, all we had to do was simply pull off the old and… okay, not-so-simply replace them with the new sections. That added 3 weekends to our process. BTW – I highly recommend this activity for "couple communication therapy"!  We now speak to each other in a whole new language – some hand signals, body language, "moments of silence," and a ton of new "inside" jokes!

The porch railings were next. (We had thought they would be first.) The old railings had a few "iffy" segments that needed replacements - so back to the store for wood. New boards were cut and with the marvelous nail gun, we had that project well in hand. One look told us everything -- old and new -- needed a new coat of paint. So back to the store for paint – what color? More communication "therapy" and a couple more weekends!

Rolls of screening material and screen frames began the next chapter. That was last weekend… we still have more screening to finish. Then, there will be the doors and redoing the floor…so much for "a couple weekends of work"! We want a plaque to put up when we are done …. "Senior-Built," as we are both into our 60s … that we can laugh at as we enjoy the bug free porch …. someday in our future! You may want to check out our great DIY and Hobbies databases for some good project ideas.

Laura C.
Smithville Branch