A Porch of My Own

A Porch of My Own

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Addition Phase 1 - A Screen Door To Nowhere

I finished some work on the back screened in porch this week. The new addition will have a small 10' x 6' deck that connects it to the screen porch. I decided it would be nice to have a screen door in that end of the porch so the deck could be accessed from there and vice versa. The addition is not going to butt up right next to the cabin but be connected by a short 6' hallway. The hallway will include a door to the deck, which will fill the space between the addition and the screen porch. (The part of the plan labeled Living Area is actually the bedroom. The room across the back will be a bathroom/utility room, although I probably won't finish that now but will use it for storage. The door from the hallway to the cabin will replace a current window by the fireplace.)

Our screen porch is 8' x 12' and two sides of it are formed by walls of the cabin, with two sides screened. Sarah and Rickie did the original screening 11 years ago when we built the cabin. A couple of years ago Rickie and I closed in one section on the side of the porch with corrugated metal to keep the hot West sun from coming in. This also allowed me to add more decorations to the little cedar Christmas tree we put up out there every year. Gave it more protection. With the addition I'll have room to put the tree inside.

The addition will shade the porch from that hot sun in the afternoon - I hope! - so I decided to take the metal panels off and put screen back up. And add a door to that side. Once I have the shell built I'll be plenty busy trying to finish it so I thought now would be a good time to do all this.

I bought a small wooden screen door for $22, a 4 x 4 cedar post, some new screen, and cedar trim boards. I got the smallest door Home Depot had, 30" wide. 

The only worry I had was that the 4 x 4 post might fall on my head when I was trying to install it! But I cut it so it fit tight - I had to hammer it in place with a mallet - so there was no danger of that!

Once I got the new screen in all the old screen looked dirty and had a few small holes. You know how one thing leads to another. So I ended up re-screening the whole porch and putting all new cedar trim on the outside. I only had two 1/8" short cuts that I didn't like and redid and was short one piece of trim (unrelated to the miscuts). So, back to Home Depot for that and the hardware I had forgotten to buy. I salute the young Home Depot employee in Kerrville that knew what a turnbuckle tension rod for the wooden door was and took me right to it! Also the employee who saw me in the parking lot and came over and helped me load the original trim and door. I've never had anybody, except other customers, help in the Houston store I used to go to.

Years ago I collected  a few old rim lock door knob sets. I used one of the rim lock parts - the part the dead bolt fits into - for the screen door handle. If I ever need it for a door, I'll just replace it with another type of handle. I have yardsticks all over the porch so I added one to the door. I'll add a few more as I get some. Helps to beef up the door and give little hands a place to push it open instead of pushing on the screen!

Phase 1 of the addition is complete. 

  



4 comments:

  1. Looks great! My husband has a great trick for getting help in Home Depot, just light up a cigarette, the guys in the orange vests come out of the wood work.

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    1. Thanks, Judith! I'm not sure even a fire would get the Houston fellas in high gear but you gotta try! Lol! The Kerrville Home Depot and Lowe's are both good about helping and I'm so glad to have them fairly close.

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