Happy Tuesday, my friends! I’ve been working on this post for over a week and I’m finally getting around to sharing it! I titled this post, “How to build a front porch”, when actually I have absolutely no idea how. Thankfully, my husband does! So, come see a few pictures!
We bought this lake house, aka Happy Hill back in 2012 while we were still living in Pennsylvania. We wanted a vacation home close to our families, who all live in North Carolina. This is the photo from the original listing of the house. My husband, Brad and I fell instantly in love with it over Zillow! We bought it and we’ve been working on it ever since! 
To give the house a little more curb appeal, we painted the entire house and added new shingles. We cleaned up the yard and got rid of the ivy that was covering everything. It’s amazing what paint can do, right? Once the exterior was spruced up to our satisfaction, we started on the interior remodel in earnest!
As time wore on, we realized the original front porch roof and decking was rotted and needed to be replaced. My husband retired last year and decided to take on the job himself! Starting in February of this year, he spent weeks and weeks tearing down the old roof and my treasure room. This is right after the roof portion was down.
We decided since we were going to all of this trouble to replace the roof, we may as well replace the deck and the surrounding areas. We had a contractor rip out the old concrete, the brick planting beds, and pour a new driveway all the way up to where the new deck would be. Brad poured new footings for the foundation and re-built it all from scratch.
We used a version of Trex flooring but this brand was about ⅓ less expensive, and looked just as nice, so we went with it! This is half way though the process…
And then the decking was complete! (This is my husband’s favorite toy, his 1966 Ford pick-up truck, which stays mostly at the lake house.)
Once the decking and concrete were replaced, it looked much neater, but the front of the house was still a hot mess.
By now it was Spring time and more importantly, golf season. My husband wanted to concentrate on his golf game and work on the rest of the front porch later in the year. But we felt like we couldn’t leave it looking like this! Yikes!
Originally, we thought we could simply touch-up paint the exposed siding. But the paint wasn’t an exact match and there were some stains on the siding, so it seemed best to repaint the entire front of the house.
So, we did. Much better, right? At least the front of the house looked presentable until the next phase of construction!
Fast forward to August, and my husband started building the framework for the new porch. I helped him install the front headers, which weighed a MILLION POUNDS. After that, Brad decided he needed someone with bigger muscles and more porch know-how than your’s truly. Thank you, Lord!
Brad framed all of this himself and then hired a handy man, (aka Seth) to help him finish the rest of the covered porch.
This is the last sliver of sky under the roof before the final row of plywood was attached.
I’m thankful I wasn’t asked to hoist the huge sheets of plywood up on top of the roof. It was a back breaker for even Brad and Seth. And the temperatures were in the 90’s that week! Ugh!
We wanted the front of the house to have a bit more curb appeal so we decided to build a gable or cricket over the front door to add some symmetry to the otherwise lopsided front. My husband is a Chief Operating Officer by trade and not a builder, however, he is quite handy, and figured out how to build all of this. (I think here he’s watching a U-tube video and telling Seth how to do it.)
And here is the new gable! I love how it frames the front door and gives it much needed character.
Brad trimmed out the center of the gable with plywood. We are debating between using the same siding as the rest of the house or maybe use a cedar shake in the center for visual interest. Hmmmm…
Brad and Seth added a drip edge and the white, pre-primed facia. It’s really starting to look like a porch!! But we still have a few more things to do before it’s all complete….
*The new shingles are next, then we plan to box out the 4×4 beams with trim and moulding and paint them white.
*We’ll replace the siding on the front of the house with new, taller siding to match and paint it gray.
*After the electrician finishes wiring for a few ceiling fans and outlets, we’ll add a tongue and groove bead board to the underside of the roof to finish it off nicely.
*When ALL of it is finished, we plan to paint give all of the rocking chairs a fresh coat of white paint and buy a big, comfy porch swing!! Can you envision it? Mint julep, anyone?
And THIS is why we bought Happy Hill! In my humble opinion, we have the best sunsets on earth! Lacey agrees!
You’ve come a long way, baby! And it’s not over yet!
What do you think of our porch project thus far? It’s been a slow process, but it’s a huge cost savings for us (meaning my husband) to do the work instead of hiring a contractor. That means more money for chandeliers! Yay! (Just kidding.) I hope you have a great day! Thanks as always for stopping by. It means so much to me for you to be here! xoxo Dell
