Please locate your nearest exit

While I was doing a lot of travelling, Charlie decided to tackle some big house projects. And by big house projects I mean that all entrances and exits to our house were removed.

It started with the front porch. When we bought the house the front porch was (poorly) enclosed, although that was not how the house was built originally. After the enclosure was built, the former owners then had the brilliant idea of painting the red brick front of the house (now inside), green. GREEN!

We tore the enclosure off a year or two ago, exposing the unfortunately nice hardwood floor that had been installed on the former front porch. We knew we’d have to replace it eventually, but also knew we needed to get the green paint off (with horrible chemicals and a power washer) before we replaced the flooring.

So Charlie had a dumpster delivered to our driveway and got to work. Once we had the dumpster, though, we discovered all the other junk we had lying around from various demolition projects that we could get rid of. Then the priority became to get it all in this dumpster at one time so we’d never have to get another dumpster again. Maybe.

One of the biggest things we wanted to make sure we got in the dumpster was the back porch. Yes, the whole back porch. It was precariously perched and barely holding together and desperately needed to be replaced.

As we loaded other miscellaneous items into the dumpster we started running out of space for the back porch, to the point that when it was time to throw the back porch in, Charlie had to cut it into little pieces to make sure the whole thing would fit. How exciting.

Charlie rebuilt the sub-structure of the front porch and installed the decking planks that are directly in front of the door so we can get in and out. If you want to visit us, you have to walk the plank. (We found this discourages solicitors, especially if the planks aren’t screwed down. Some poor door mail delivery person didn’t like the look of the planks and left our doorknob bundle of coupons on the stairs.)

For now, we at least have a way in and out of our house. The back porch rebuild will have to wait a while.

Watch that first step. It’s a doozy.