The Floating Front Porch

Oceana and I came up to the lake for another social distancing weekend. We’ve made a bunch of good progress so far clearing out by the lake. This weekend we’re hoping to wrap it up before we turn our sights on to the front porch. Saturday morning our neighbor brought the dump trailer over bright and early. We chatted for a bit and I’m pretty sure he pushed me over the edge on taking out the banyan tree. I really like banyan trees. But the root system on this banyan has done lots of damage to the driveway, the septic tank, the plumbing system, and the foundation. There’s no good way to stop the roots from doing what they’re going to do so I guess it’ll have to go. But that will be for another weekend (or 4). Today we’re finishing up down by the lake. I sharpened up the blade on the chipper and the chainsaw chain and we got to it. I cleared out the rest of the tangled mess by the water while Oceana fed the chipper. We loaded up the dump trailer with as much as we dared and cleaned up the tools. Done!

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As we mentioned previously, we’ve had some bees move in to the wall cavity in the shop. There’s a lot of bees there. One leaves every 2-3 seconds. We’re hoping to get them to relocate into a bee box so they don’t tear up the shop wall and so that we can harvest the honey. So we ordered a bee box and other bee supplies online. Friday night I opened the box and said, “yup, that’s a lot of parts. That can wait until tomorrow”. Each of the 30 frames needed to be assembled and the directions called for hand nailing the joints together. No thanks. I got out some PL adhesive and my 18 gauge brad nailer and started an assembly line. I made short work of building the frames and boxes. We set the box up near their entrance in the siding and baited it with some lemon oil.

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Saturday evening our neighbors Bud and Diana came calling with some cheese, crackers, and drinks. They’re so thoughtful! We sat around the table out on the porch and got to know each other for a bit before giving them a quick tour of the house. We snapped a quick pic and they went on their way.

Sunday morning we made a Home Depot run before getting into the front porch remodel. First things first, the old siding needed to come off. I’m not sure if the siding is asbestos or not as I’ve not had it tested. It’s the right style and age to be asbestos. Either way, we’re treating it like it is. We’ve got the proper PPE, asbestos disposal bags, and I’ve lined up a disposal site so we’re all set to get started. These white suits are crazy hot. It reminds me of wearing a sauna suit when I was trying to suck weight during wrestling season in high school. We got the siding removed, bagged, and tagged and then took a look at the hidden damage behind.

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Some of the wood siding on the north side of the porch came off with the removal of the alleged asbestos siding. We took off the rest of the wood siding to reveal the rotted framing and corner posts. There really wasn’t much holding up the corner of the roof. I set up some temporary supports below the rafters to carry the load of the roof while I fixed the rotted framing. The rim joist of the floor framing was shot as was the two posts on that side. All of the rotted framing was replaced and the temp supports were removed. After looking at the height of the half wall with Oceana, we framed up kneewalls around the new porch area. The rest of the front porch will get the same kneewalls but that will have to wait for another weekend.

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We got a chance to catch a beautiful sunset on Saturday night so we snapped a few pictures. Also, the grass seed is starting to grow in the front yard! Little by little it’s coming together.

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