The thing about home ownership, particularly for an older house, is that there is always something that needs to be addressed. We had known the front porch needed some attention, but this winter when the thick concrete slab cracked and started actively sinking, it moved itself to the top of the project list.

We engaged our friend Nate, who has done several projects on our house now, including the sunroom, to come take a look. He gave us a very reasonable quote on price and said he thought he could get it done in about 2 weeks.  And thus, we commenced with replacing the front porch in mid-April. Part of the project scope included replacing any damaged wood uncovered in the demolition project as well as adding a French drain to the front yard. Our house sits on a sloped lot – we are slightly downhill from the street and built into the slope as it continues down. From the street in front of the house, it appears to be a cute bungalow but walk around the side of the house and it’s three stories with a walk out basement. Water is the biggest foe to a homeowner, and it always flows downhill. Over the twenty seven years we’ve lived here, we have done numerous things to address water coming straight at our foundation but putting in a French drain has long been something we wanted to do. Doing it while having the front porch ripped up made sense while also addressing what clearly was an underlying cause of why the original porch was failing. We had a plan and we had contingencies.

Day one construction, the scope of the project shifted dramatically.

We knew the hole under the porch was deep, but Nate, our builder, had underestimated the size of the hole. It went all the way down to the base of the house foundation, although it (thankfully) was not tied to it. There were a few days of oh shit, what is this going to do to the scope of the project, do we need to address the foundation, what is this going to do to our budget, which thankfully, was allayed by a visit from a structural engineer who assured us, the foundation was fine. I may have paid him in pickles after he got a look at my canning wall and was visibly impressed.

With a huge sigh of relief on our part, Nate hatched a plan to fill the hole with gravel. Per his calculations, we needed an entire dump truck worth of it. He hired a crew who filled in the front porch and got the French drain knocked out in a day. The project had momentum.

Now that that Nate could safely stand in front of the house, he set out to uncover all the water damage. We got lucky in that the damage was contained to the footprint of where the porch met the house and stayed along the sill, not moving up into the walls. However, we also found termite damage (thankfully no active termites) that had moved up into the walls on one area of the house. As nerve wracking as chasing that damage was, turns out it was kept to a relatively smallish area. Phew.  

This is how a front porch renovation led to my basement being a hot mess that I am still untangling. Not only did they need to access the back wall of the basement from inside the house, they needed to put a temporary wall in for support while they replaced the sill. This required the entire back half of the basement – including my glorious floor to ceiling shelves my husband built to store all my canning and cooking class equipment – to be emptied.

At this point it was well into May and our project schedule had slipped into ‘six weeks’ territory with a budget that was looking like double what was originally estimated. The neighbors were popping by regularly to gawk at what was going on. “Oh you’re getting a glow up”, actually no, when we’re done, it’s going to be the same old house. We are just spending a lot of money on those really unglamourous things that sometimes old houses require. Sigh.

Eventually though, the rotted wood was replaced. Shingles were hung, new trim installed. We rearranged a column so that it tied into the structure but didn’t take up floor space on the porch anymore. We had a crew come paint the front of the house in a day. (The entire thing was painted in 2019 so we didn’t need a full repaint). And then, just like that, two months later, we were back at the original scope of work – replacing the front porch.

The plan had long been to replace it with Trex composite decking. With the budget foremost in mind, we went with a lower cost option, which Nate argued we’d only get thirty years out of. Given that we’ve been here almost that long and are in our mid-fifties, that seems okay. I mean, if I’m still living in this house in thirty years, god bless me.

Nate wrapped up work the end of June, more than double the budget and closer to three months than two weeks. There’s still things to be done – covering the gravel of the French drain with a more attractive smaller stone, addressing the front flower beds which were partially dug up and trampled in the process. We need to stain the wood base of the porch, so I’m pretty sure those twelve inches or so of rain we got the month of August after it not raining for so long is thanks to Pat trying to knock that out. The new porch also has room for sitting, so there’s been some furniture conversations – Pat got a new glider at an estate sale and is on the hunt for something to compliment it. Oh, and then there’s the basement to be reckoned with. I have mostly gotten my prepper shelves back in order and we’ve done some decluttering down there with more to go. But after months of either going out the back door with a flight of steps down or having to climb in the front door, it’s nice to have the front entrance back and fully functional. Daisy is particularly happy to have the front porch back – never a fan of stairs, she has had some back problems that long dogs like her are prone to over the last year. In order to keep her from reinjuring herself, there was a good bit of carrying and lifting her, which she is also not a fan of. Thankfully, she at least tolerated it.

Combined with the new roof we had installed last year, this project shored up the house, addressing all the ways water was getting in. The first big rain after the French drain went in, it was downright weird to not be worried about where the water was coming in. Fear not, the next project has already announced itself as the a/c unit for upstairs has been slowly giving up the ghost this summer. Thankfully, we have a few months to address it and that, hopefully, will be a more straight forward project without surprises hiding in wait for us.  Then again, it’s an old house and with old houses, it’s always something.