A Recap ... And a Reveal - Part 1

So, last August I tore down the deck. I didn't know just how we were going to build the covered porch out back that we had been talking about off and on for years. What I did know was that nothing was ever going to happen as long as the ramshackle 10x10 deck was still standing.

It took DAYS to get the deck down. (While the previous owners never did anything else right around here, they DID put that deck together well! But, in typical fashion, they didn't plan it out well. We always thought the deck never went with the house, a fact made more obvious by the fact that its placement also looked like it was just plunked down in the yard.) It took several more days to clear the mess, remove all the rock (white marble chip that we had put around the deck and then layers of Ponderosa rock that had been there previously, buried under layers of plastic).

Then, we mapped out the placement of some 4x6 posts and poured a 12x18 concrete slab around them. I had never poured concrete before. I'd messed with lots of mortar out front so I couldn't imagine it could be too hard. Let's just say it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. Never. Ever. Never again. (Did I mention I will NEVER pour concrete again?)

And then, just as I'd done with the front porch and the old sidewalk, I began covering it with bricks.

And covering it. In all, I put down nearly 1,000 bricks.

And then, after weeks of staring down, things started looking up. Literally.

 

I remember very clearly wondering just how in the name of all that's holy Lawrence and were I going to get that ginormous truss more than 12 feet in the air. But I should have known that Lawrence would have a plan. He is always the man with the plan!

 And it was nothing but up from there on out.