Before - Ivy has been the home for many critters and the bane of Jo-Ann's yard work tasks. It kept the home cool, but made it tough to find the front door.
After - Where's Waldo in this picture? I think he may be relaxing on the porch!
Summer 2003 - Porch Rebuilding
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Before - Ivy has been the home for many critters and the bane of Jo-Ann's yard work tasks. It kept the home cool, but made it tough to find the front door. |
After - Where's Waldo in this picture? I think he may be relaxing on the porch! |
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All ivy has been removed and some of the handrails. We try some different arch details so see what works for us. We decide on the "filled pattern" as the open one will attract bird nests. |
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April - New Stairs We also decide to use the center of the porch to define the new front of the house. The old steps are just in the wrong place. So here Jo checks out the new ones. One neighbor suggest "rounding" the steps - a good idea but lots of work. |
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May - First footprints Our neighbor supplied a small child to inaugurate the new stairs. Here one can see the first footprints .. a sure fire way to inaugurate the equipment
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This is a pure photo op! John enlists the help of George Mata to demo out about 4000 pounds of concrete which has been setting up since 1951. John went to the rental store and lends moral support. |
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June - Progress Here the arches are done and handrails underway. |
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Thank goodness for the band saw and the shop. It is pretty easy to do the work in the shop and then take to the porch. But be sure to measure carefully. We decide on a hitching post design for the balusters and use a lot of the former handrail as stock. Clear fir from the 1930's, we think. |
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Fill Fill in the old stairs hole. Pretty good match! |
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So the porch complete, it's time to move on to the sidewalks and entrance. Here John enjoys a new mixer which makes short work of making concrete from the bags. The garbage can is just the right height to help keep the 80# bags high enough to dump into the hopper. |
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So the canal was not dug by hand - but the railroad across the sierra was. John gains respect for the efforts of just plugging away with a shovel to move large amounts of dirt.
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Kevin Arredondo helps out a bunch spreading the bedding gravel. He thinks this is actually a fun job - and it really is!
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It must be time for Hawaii. Jo practices up her skills at barefoot sand moving by filling in the pavers with bedding sand from Monterey. It takes a while using this method - but, Oh how therapeutic!
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