I’m starting to tackle a project that I’ve been wanting to work on for years now, updating our screened in porch. When we first moved in we noticed that the cement base of the porch was crumbling at the edges, it was one of the things that we knew we’d get to fixing eventually but it just wasn’t a priority. We weren’t a fan of the dirty glued down carpet either, but there were more pressing things to take care of at the time (like getting a new boiler!)

Now, three and a half years later, I’ve had it with the dirty faux grass out door carpet. I took out my box cutter and threw on some gloves and ripped it up. My only regret is that I wore flip flops because my feet got filthy, but you live and you learn, right?

I have a tendency to jump into projects before I have a fully thought out plan, which is both a blessing and a curse. When it comes to the porch project, after I ripped up the carpet I found numerous other issues, concerning both structure and design. The english ivy that had been growing around the base of the porch had caused a lot of structural damage to the the corners and edges of the porch, meaning that (one of) my first priority(ies) has to be stabilizing the concrete underneath one of the weight bearing posts.

Once that is taken care of…

I could just glue down another carpet.

I could just leave the old metal wall frame up.

I could just patch the concrete edges around the frame.

But that’s just not good enough 😉 — if we’re getting into it we might as well go all in. So the porch project will be addressed in four phases.

1. Phase One – remove old walls (leaving up the original weight baring 4x4s) and sand the cement floor.
2. Phase Two – fix crumbling concrete areas and provide additional support where needed.
3. Phase Three – build new walls and screens.
4. Phase Four – add thin brick veneer to exterior cement walls, and clean up yard debris/landscape around the porch.

Since I have a tendency to get ahead of myself, I’m already thinking about how I’ll construct the new walls. I’m considering an X shape design painted white, with the screen attached to the interior of the porch walls so that we can see the woodwork from the outside. I’ll get into more detail about how I plan to construct the walls in another post but here is a mock up of how that will look.

Today I’m tackling wall removal, which will *hopefully* be straight forward and simple.

Have you ever taken on an exterior project like this, repaired a screened in porch or worked with patching cement structures?

Here’s to hoping it’ll all work out exactly as I envision it!