Repairing a Porch

Today I will show you how to repair a porch. Last year- back when my mom finally acquired a Nintendo Wii- I repaired the same spot, but didn't do as thorough a job as I should have. That was on December 22nd, and my dad was still in jail at that point. Now I am reaping the fruit of my not fixing it thoroughly by having to repair it once more.


We begin by examining the spot that needs fixing.

See the large section of wood that's lighter colored? That's the piece that's becoming week. (Weak- we'll get that in editing.) It's cheap wood, and it's thinner than the rest of the porch, so you can understand the problem. Not to mention that it's on the most used part of the porch.


Now, I removed all the fastenings. Several screws, and a nail. I had to look for a hammer; failing, I used the miniature kiddy claw hammer we keep in the kitchen. It only has one claw. The other claw broke off in the process of trying to remove the single nail- this was one of the times I'm very grateful that I wore pants, as because of their protection I'm thankfully still capable of having children. So I had to spend another 10 minutes looking before I found a medium sized hammer that worked.


Take that, you cad nail. See how it looks underneath?

Note that it needs more cross braces. That's one of the most stressed portions of the entire porch, and it has little support. I know this because, well, it's the ONLY portion of the porch we've had to replace. Now we have to replace it a second time. Precious and either Tessa or Penny are in the picture; probably Tessa.

Next, we need a saw so that we can both cut the supports and the new plywood section.

No...that's too old.

AGH, that's WAY too old!

Ah! Just right! Ever used a table saw? I wish I could say "It's really quite simple" but I don't know either. Because I'm unrelentingly smart, I'll figure it out on my own. Oh...and before you think this is all easy fun and games...it's been over an hour so far. It's not easy, fun and games when you have to hunt down every tool you need, most of them not working very well. Pastor says that the only way out of this life is a .45 to the temple...don't have that particular caliber.

OK, here the braces are in. See how I positioned them? That's called a "Y-axis inward end support." So far, it's been another hour- almost exactly another hour, in fact. (It isn't really called a Y-axis inward end support, but why not?)

Now to the pile of wood for the plywood. The pile of wood was supported by two metal sawhorses, and one of them got mercilessly owned during removal of the plywood. I got very angry and frustrated during removal. There were 4 2x12x12's, and 3 1x4x10's, and 3 sheets of 5/8x4'x8' plywood. Then there were two picnic tables on top- yes, picnic tables- and two milk-crate-sized boxes of tools. Then two tarps covering it all.

It was the whole "Maybe I can remove this without removing it all one by one" attitude that owned me. I was very mad. I haven't cursed like that in months! And months! In the course of my cursing, I rethought some of the meanings of the words I was using. Those things are downright vulgar, especially when strung together in just the right way. No wonder I don't like them.

Anyway, here's the plywood cut. I believe it's called "ripped." Because you "rip" a sheet of plywood. I don't know why it isn't called "cutting." It's the 21st century, dudes...we have cool new words to use. Like "cut."

There it is. It's not a very straight cut...I don't think table saws are designed to cut ...er, rip plywood. It's sort of a wavy cut. If I had the circular saw, everything would be fine and dandy, and the Muffin Man would have dropped by with a basket of lemon fluff and orange creme muffins. But my dad has the circular saw at his job. Thanks a lot, Dad. You prevented a visit from the Muffin Man! ...and now I want to make a lemon meringue pie!

Here it is, finally in place. Isn't it pretty? I think it is. I simply screwed it down every so often along the sides. That worked out well. It took 2 hours and 53 minutes to get to this point (not counting break/phone time.) Seems very durable, but there's one problem...


Now the screen door is hard to open and shut. Thus, it needs to have its hangers adjusted; shouldn't be too hard. Also, part of the problem is that our screen door has nail heads sticking out on the bottom- don't look at me, I'm smart enough to use screws- and those nail heads rake across the wood until they've sufficiently cut themselves a groove to move in. That's where the term "Groovemovin" came from, you know. You know, from the song?...no? Come on, everyone knows the chorus to that song! It's as popular as the chorus to "Pear Trees Don't Bloom In August"! ...you know that one, right? About how partridges are left without a pear tree to hang in dur...oh forget it, you uncultured nail.


I was screwing and unscrewing on my merry way to having the screen door adjusted just perfectly, when something happened that I didn't expect.

The bit broke.


Oh, the humanity! Oh, the drama! Oh, the pain! Oh, the nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, and diarrhea! HEY PEPTO-BISMAL!...aw man, that completely ruined the whole "disastrous occurrence" effect I was going for. Anyhoo, time to find a new bit, right? E+Z divided by Z, right?

Once more, not that simple. By 1:50 PM I had given up completely. With no more bits to be found- my dad has them all except the ones which are too big or too small- my toiling was found to be in futility. In total, I spent 3 hours fixing the porch today. We'll see how effective my laboring was next year around this time.

Now, I am off to have a bowl of gumbo. Gumbo makes everything better. Including the fact that I should be milking right now, and dinner is nowhere near being started.