"SUMMER PROJECT COMPLETED"

On or about June the 5th., I finally began work on enclosing the screened-in back porch of my house. As previously stated in a post, my wife had started using this as storage area for her crafts and supplies back several years ago, so it was never a place just to sit outside and relax in good weather. She'd gotten it so very junky looking that I got tired of all the neighbors seeing this mess and decided to cover it up somehow, which is when the idea of simply putting up walls came to mind.

(Now, I didn't take any before photos of this area, but, if you will, just imagine that prior to this work the area was nothing more than a large screened-in area with white posts.)

I had a good number of door skins that my late father-in-law had given me last year and planned on using these, but when I checked them around the first of June, I discovered that they were pretty dirty and moldy and slightly warped although they had been kept covered up outside with a tarp. Even so I decided to salvage this material by scrubbing them down with a hard stream of water and plenty of bleach to kill the mold, and repaint both sides.

I began with the back left side of the house. Instead of nails I used drywall screws and they went up easy enough. I then added lattice which I had repainted, and finally painted several long wooden poles a "hunter green" for trim work, to match the green metal roof of the house. I added some extra trim work here and there to cover the areas where either the skins, or new wood, had been added. Here below is the finished effect.



Next I worked on the back right side and painted the railing (composed on galvenized pipe) white to match everything else, and the concrete steps the same hunter green. I added lattice to the top and the upper part of the screen door, covering the bottom half with plywood. The skins went up next, then more trim work, and finally I painted the bottom green as well. I filled in several of the (open) rafters with calking where wood bees had bore, and repainted some of them as well. (Eventually I plan on "boxing in" the open rafters and painting that area white). So, here's what that looked like upon completion:



The rear of this room was more of a challenge as the rafters were not evenly set apart, and I could only use two door skins anywhere, but fortunately I had some fairly large plywood to use in the other spaces. I initially wanted the window centered and smaller, but it just didn't seem to work that way, and my wife suggested to off-center it, make it larger and a bit higher up. I covered this with white lattice as well, plus even more trim work. The last touch was painting all of the many screw heads either white or green so they wouldn't show and re-painting little areas where I messed up a bit, and hanging a wooden-framed "star" on a large spaced to break up that a bit, and then, it was completely done. It's at the base of this area that I'll be adding a "rock garden" soon in the dirt area in the shade where grass won't grow. Here is that result:



Like any artist, I'm never completely satisfied with any "art project" I complete, and this - to me - was such. It's not perfect, but I even amazed myself at what I was capable of doing when I tried.