Here’s a shot of the porch before I started ripping it apart. Nysha and I have been wanting to rip this wall out for quite some time to open up our porch. Although it blocks some of the wind, we want to eventually put a concrete pad from the edge of the garden at the bottom of the picture all the way to the shed. A set of stairs from the end of the porch will eventually be installed as well.
After pulling off the layer of siding, this is what I discovered. I was hoping I could reuse some of the studs in this wall for the railings, but the would was water damaged. I was also surprised how easy the wall came out; there wasn’t much holding it in.
Now, logically speaking, if the wood in the wall was damaged, chances are the flooring was damaged too. The “new decking” which was installed on the porch is probably the only thing stopping us from falling through the floor! I took my circular saw and cut back the flooring and carpet underneath to make a ledge for a 2x4 to fit on. The skirting and the porch were not level with each other, so I had to shim the two so they were level with each other. The pillar on the right needed to be extended as well to match the others.
One of the problems we’ve been facing with our porch is the leaking which comes between the house and roof of the porch whenever it rains. The 2x4 which is now lag-bolted to the wall was pulled away from the wall about two inches. The metal roofing was consequently pulled away from the wall which made it leak. After the wall was ripped out, I cut out a section of the ceiling to give myself room to put in some bolts. Three six-inch lag bolts were enough to suck that 2x4 into the wall as much as I could. When the roofing was installed, it was butted right up to the wall; the 2x4 was left two inches away from the wall. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it made it impossible for me to suck that 2x4 closer because of the roofing. I would have to rip the whole roof off to get that 2x4 right up against the wall. 
Here is the almost-finished product. The pillar against the wall was built to match the rest of them. The railing was also matched to the others. Painting is pretty much the last thing to do on the porch before it’s completed. It is amazing how taking that wall out makes the yard look twice as big. It also allows a nice breeze to come in to cool the east end of the house off on hot days. It took about eight hours to finish this project.
This last picture is a small garden I dug in on the west side of our fence. I transplanted our rhubarb from the west end of our yard into this small section. Hopefully with enough water and light it will start perking up again! What we’re planning for the rest of this section is strawberry plants which we are going to pick up this week. I also transplanted the tulips which were planted in the bald patch to right right of the garden and put them with the others in the front flower garden. I’m sad the tulips have already kicked the bucket for the year! They smelled so good and now the buds have all come off. Oh well; I guess they couldn’t last all year. The next project for this summer is to dig up the top few inches of sod and rototill the lawn to prepare it for grass seed. The lawn is so unlevel and there are dandelions and crab grass everywhere. Maybe by the end of the summer our yard will start looking a bit more like Mike & Mel’s. Their yard is beautiful and we have a lot of work to do if we want to even come close to comparing! I’ll post more later when I get more done.
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