The back porch (or "porch") is a structure stuck onto the exterior back wall of the house. It appears to have been built sometime between the 40's to the 70's. From the looks of it, it was built by grandpa on the weekends, who did not have architectural plans or a permit.
The entry to the basement had previously been in the kitchen (this would make that room have 5 doorways and a large window!). This doorway had been moved to the exterior wall, in what I presume had previously been a window opening. The porch is fairly large - about 10 x 18'. The washer and dryer and utility sink are located here. BUT - there was only a tiny window stuck in the wall at one end, with a door with a small window at the other end. There was brown wood panelling on all the walls AND ceiling, and one single bulb light fixture. Some portions of the wood panelling had been covered by wallpaper. There were signs of an old leak at one corner (which corresponded with crazy DIY repairs to the eavestroughing situation) but at least this was currently dry. While this room was heated, it was always freezing. It was just grim. The exterior was covered with brittle old vinyl siding.
I pondered having the entire thing torn off and discarded - but there wasn't really another good place for the washer and dryer to go, without major plumbing and electrical. I spent a long time wondering what to do with this awful room.
Finally the contractor(John) I had used before for my kitchen and powder room and fence was available. We have been steadily undoing the strange things to get to the fixing.
The wood panelling was stripped off to reveal pre-1900's wide tongue and groove boards on the walls and ceiling. This was a happy discovery. There was one very strange area where there appeared to be the original door opening - except this turned out to be two antique doors in terrible condition stuck together. When that was removed there were a bunch of styrofoam slabs between the doors, used as some sort of insulation I guess ? The slabs were from a fabric store - what bolts of cloth were wrapped around (there were labels on the end). When the vinyl siding was peeled off, it was revealed that recycled wood, possibly from the garage from the 20's that was here, had been used to attach the siding to. The paint was same malachite green as on the 2nd floor windows.
The plan was install three salvaged windows, facing east, and then to use three matching windows for storm windows.
I had looked for a good antique door for a long time, but came up empty for something that was the right size. I finally settled on a french door with bevelled glass, as that was the best I could find, at the time.
As the bad old wood panelling was stripped off a new problem emerged. The ceiling was sagging. Like REALLY sagging. There was an opening cut into the ceiling, with pieces of plywood screwed over it. John entered the attic opening and it was good news/bad news. The framing itself looked fine, with no rot or wetness. BUT - the rafters were a little undersized and widely spaced. There was also no ledger strip connected to the brick wall. On the house side, a hole had been bashed through the brick, probably to install the stove vent assembly. In the worst saggy area BRICKS had been stuffed into the gap between the tongue and groove boards and the exterior wall. Like at least 20 bricks ! No wonder there was a sag there. We removed the bricks and John kept poking around. He tugged at a piece of wood that looked like it wasn't doing much. There was an audible groan as the ceiling dropped at least three inches in the worst area. I ran ! It was very, very bad:
- badceiling.jpg (1.62 MiB) Viewed 714 times
I was very afraid that the entire ceiling would come tumbling down like loose Jenga blocks.
We had previously decided to repair(ie make a new one) the missing ledger strip from inside the room. The side that was closest to the house had always been at least 2" lower than the east wall. Now it was at least 5" lower. Yikes.
The next day John came with three jack posts. Shoring up the ceiling turned out the be less of an ordeal than expected, and after only a couple of hours the terrible ceiling now looked like this:
- betterceiling.jpg (1.46 MiB) Viewed 714 times
(The wall looks better with the last of the ugly panelling gone, too. Note the old stove pipe hole.)
There was a major gap between the ceiling and the brick wall. The remedy was agreed to be a strip of
2 x 6, attached to the wall with long anchors, with a piece of 2x10 above this, like a shelf, to bridge the gap, but also to support the unsupported ceiling. There will also be supports running vertically from the wall to the ceiling. This is in progress.
The windows have been installed, with leftover antique trim from the kitchen:
- Nov2019.jpeg (1.39 MiB) Viewed 714 times
Same with the door:
- betterdoor.jpg (769.11 KiB) Viewed 714 times
The very rotten soffit and fascia has been repaired, and the exterior is almost fully stripped to await the siding. Doing siding in Dec. would really not be my first choice, but some chaos and delays left no other option:
- strippedext.jpg (1.64 MiB) Viewed 714 times
I forgot to mention that one of the reasons the room was so very cold - despite copious insulation - was that at some time squirrels had a real apartment complex happening in the walls. They chewed through the sheathing material (kind of particle board looking stuff) in several areas and had cozy nests in several areas between the studs. The holes they chewed were at least 10 x 12" - covered only by a couple of mm of vinyl siding ! That plus the large gap by the ceiling made for a breezy room. I will be happy if when this room is done that it will be 60F in the room if the house is 70F. As it was, the porch was about 45F with a 70F house, in late Nov.
My plan is to paint the tongue and groove boards. They were previously painted sort of a dark olive green with a varnish over that, which is very darkened. I have no desire to strip or varnish the boards. I'm unsure about leaving the brick wall as is - just scraping off the loose and flaking paint - or painting that, too.
There's still a huge amount of work to go, including repairing the awful door frame to the basement - which had been roughly bashed out of the bricks then supported with a few particle board planks. Every day the porch looks like it has more potential as a usable space, vs an area that was being used like the closet of shame. I unpacked some boxes from when I moved here (2016) and discovered contents in one box that had been packed in 2005 for the last big move before that ! I found some missing treasures (good) but I'm aiming to have no areas of useless clutter where unused stuff is stashed.
