My porch is falling off the front of my house. I don't have a lot of sympathy for it because it doesn't belong there. It's a deck, like, for the back of the house. Not the front. When we moved in, it was gray, but needed a paint job almost immediately. It was probably painted by the former owners with whatever was lying around. I went to Home Depot and picked out a colonial blue. But in the sunshine, it is highway emergency sign blue. Ah well.
That was, of course, several years ago. Perhaps 8? And paint doesn't last forever. The porch is now weather-beaten and shabby looking. The top step is shaky. And I'm having a hard time caring. I pour a lot of the anger and frustration I have with the former owner into the porch. Other things I can fix easily--wallpaper, paint, even poorly chosen internal structures like a closet in the dining room enclosing the fireplace. But the porch is like a scar, like a cigarette burn: this house has been abused, it tells everyone who drives by.
But like a foster family who really does their job, we've done our best for this place. But the porch we want to do right or not at all. The other porches on our block have roofs, for one thing. Most are masonry foundation. Ours was at one point, before the former owners ripped it off in favor of expediency. I don't want to just repair what we have. I want to restore what is missing. Even if it's just a wood porch, that's fine, but I want a roof back where it once was. You can see it in the brick above the front door, the shape of the roof that is gone forever.
But the Paxtons are having their house painted this month (it seems to be taking that long, at least) and it points out to me that I can really no longer pretend we're going to sink tens of thousands of dollars into a masonry foundation porch anytime soon. I need to sink some decent nails into the shaky steps, rebuild the railing on the west side, and reattach the finials. Most importantly, tt's time to paint.I'm thinking a sage where it's now white, and where it's blue? Ozark Airlines green.
1 comment:
Finally, I am starting to read this blog!
I just had my porch floors replaced, as you might know. Just the floors (and supports). No concrete foundations, and I was getting a deal, and it still cost $6K to make it work. I should have done this 11 years ago, but you know how that goes. All the other gazillion projects (like the barn foundation) using up all the money...
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