The Front Porch

A friend told us that every home in Kentucky needed a front porch, that it was actually additional living space. Before we had finished the addition to our house I built a front porch. It is the length of the house, 3o feet, and 8 feet wide.

The picture above was taken shortly after the porch was built.

One item that Connie had wanted for the porch was a porch swing. I kept thinking that I could build her one, even located plans on the internet, but just never got around to getting one built. We had sat in a patio swing with the canopy at my cousin’s home and discussed getting one of those. We looked at a nice one at Wally World (Wal-Mart) but decided that it was just too big for our porch. I asked the associate if they carried porch swings. She said that they didn’t but that her husband built them. She cautioned me to be quiet but she gave me his phone number.

After talking to him on the phone Connie and I went over to his shop and looked at one he had built. He said he would build whatever we wanted. The only thing different we asked for was a little additional depth, it was a bit short for my long legs. He built it for us with that additional depth and also a bit taller. It was built out of native cedar, although not from here on the ridge.

While we were at Wally World looking at the patio swing we noticed that they had marked down the price on “porch rockers.” Connie had expressed many times that one would be nice. So, we went back and bought two!

With nice porch furniture we decided that it would be nice to have the porch screened in, which we had discussed in times past. Although not quite finished, we are getting the porch screened in. I had to do some additional framing, as shown here.

Since we had never put a ceiling in the porch that was also needed. I considered several ways of doing it but finally settled on using OSB (orient strand board).

I caulked the seams before painting. After painting I also installed two ceiling fans with lights.

This week I have put up the screen and put wood strips over the seams. These I put on with screws so they can easily be removed if I should need to replace a screen.

We have yet to put up a screen door. The man who built our porch swing is making us a cedar screen door. I’ll post a picture once we get it put up. We also plan to put indoor/outdoor carpeting on the floor since there are cracks between the boards and creepy crawly critters can come up from under the porch. We’ll keep you updated.

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A New Front Door

For quite some time (like since we first put it in) we have wanted a different front door. The door we had was a solid door without any glass. We really wanted a door with glass in it to let in a bit more light. But, perhaps the biggest frustration was that the door couldn’t be opened all of the way back.

The door had been purchased for another application and just wasn’t right for the location we chose to use it in. The door was designed for a standard 4” wall (one using 2” X 4” studs) and our wall is a 6” wall. With the brick moulding on the outside of the house, as it is supposed to be, the door lacks 2” from reaching the inside wall. I was able to cut material to fill in the gap from the trim to the door jam but it was not possible to open the door beyond straight into the room.

In this photo, taken at Thanksgiving, of our daughter, Anna, and her husband, Jeff, you can see the old door sticking out into the room. We generally keep a chair back in the corner and anyone sitting in it had to look around the door.

We picked out a door we liked but it also was made for a 4” wall. We inquired and found that we could order one for a 6” wall BUT it was $100.00 more! The salesman suggested that I remove the brick moulding, set the door to the inside wall, attach the brick moulding to the outside, and then fill in with material. I had considered that but the problem was, as I saw it, the door had a 4” sill and that was a problem. He informed me they could order a 6” sill, which was less than $25.00. Needless to say, that is what we did.

In the above pictures you can see the door opened back and also with it closed. A feature with this door, that you can’t see, is a built-in mini-blind. The blind can be raised, as in these pictures, and is hidden at the top. It can be lowered part way, or all the way, and can be adjusted with the blinds opened or closed. We probably won’t use the blind all that often but it gives us the option if we choose to use it.

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