May 2007 - The Back Porch Project
How the excitement fades after a new project is finished.  It just seem like a little while ago I was reveling in my completion of the nice door in the bedroom.

It was time to begin to build the porch, so you had a place to 'go' when going through the new door to the outside.

I was confident about the understructure design - comprising of the footings and decking.  But there was a roof element - something I've never built.  Referring to deck books, magazines at the check-out of Lowes and guides on the web, I finally started to get an idea of how I wanted it to look.

This  being the fist step of the project - of course - means that  you find out something that you've overlooked - and realize that now you have several "mini" projects that need to be completed before you can start the REAL project.  Sigh. It happens every time.

The door to nowhere.	The ledger board (below) and header board (above) are added.  It took a LONG time to get to this point. The vents had to be covered and mortar packed behind the bottom board since the stucco siding under the door was very wavy.  Also the brackets for the deck/roof posts have been anchored to the cement, and the leveling strings set up.
The 4x4 posts are in place with temporary bracing. At this point I had to figure out the angle of the roof - making sure that a future screen door would be able to swing open freely.	The grunt work begins to add the joists for the deck, and for the roof.  The cross post spanning the two uprights is also in place.
The corrugated metal roofing is in place, and the decking begins. The decking material is made by Choice Deck and is a mix of wood and polymers.	Cool! The decking came out nice.  A temporary step is in place to get to the main deck below. Thanks to my friend Dick for helping me with the permanent steps we built later on.
More composite material is used for the railing, railing slats and the permanent steps. The last thing remaining is some trim that goes around the door.