For Christmas and birthday this year, I'm giving Lorna a new front porch. Her old front porch was truly awful. From Google Earth…

We took off the old metal with peeling paint front porch roof and the soffits and facing boards acraoss the front of the house because they were rotten. I mixed up a bleach/water solution to spray on the brick to make moldy black stains go away. It sort of worked as you may notice in future photos.

We bought Hardie soffit planks and they were long and heavy. Steve came to help because I really couldn't hold up my end of the planks. In the photo below they have a little more than half of the soffit and facing boards up.

Chris dug post holes and I helped level the 4×4 posts. My other jobs include carrying stuff, putting stuff up, getting it out, consulting, and keeping things moving. Have you seen crews of guys standing around looking at a job and disucussing what comes next? I try to keep dicussions short and people moving. That said, I'm not doing a lot/any of the heavy lifting so it's easy for me to say let's move on.

We started Monday, today is Wednesday. The old stuff is down. The soffits and facing are up. Unless we are hampered by rain, we caulk tomorrow so we can paint on Friday.

We finished laying the decking planks on this framework today (but I didn't take that photo). Tomorrow Chris hopes to dig the holes for the 4×4 posts that will support the step. If that goes in tomorrow we can build the step on Friday. Friday and/or Saturday we hope to get the framework up for the corrugated (wavy) galvanized metal sheets that will protect the porch. 

The front door needs to be trimmed out and painted, and a light needs to be hung. There are a few bushes to plant and then this job will be finished! (in time for candy making next week…)