Front Porch Renovation

A while back we did a great new front porch renovation! 

Before, the front porch was concrete, so we thought we would bring it back to what it might have originally looked like made of local redwood.

Time to get to work!

We took the porch down, but then Pam couldn't leave the house! So we added a ramp!

This dog made our porch! 

We had a some redwood railings made. Had the porch constructed, and then got to painting! 

Here's the finished product!

New Victorian-Style Porch

We've added a new porch recently, and to our surprise, a charming dog came with it!

So far we've painted the railing, but there's still more to go.

We tore the original porch off as part of our foundation work.   We had a Victorian reproduction made of redwood designed and built for us by Dane Cowen from Ferndale.  He handcrafted the pieces, we painted them, and he put the whole thing together!

(Before)

First things First! Carpet!

A couple points worth making about removing carpet

1) a lot of bad thing can be fixed by ripping out old carpets - that old abandoned house smell gets better when the old soiled shag is gone.

2) carpet removal is easier than removing tiles or vinyl floors - so start with the easy stuff.

3) secrets for carpet removal include a good sharp carpet knife, if the carpet is nailed down well you can cut it in 3ft strips and the pull away. We found about half the carpet is really nailed down and the other half barely attached to the tack strips. You never know until you start taking it out.

4) getting the carpet tacks out.  The older the carpets the more carpet tacks, nails and screws have been used to hold the old carpet in place.   Once the carpet is out and headed for the dumpster then the work of nail and tack strip removal begins.   Don't waste your time with an old pair of pliers because it will take forever. After the first day we bought a couple of Dasco Pro12 Pulling Claw Bar.

Here's a look at the house before anything has been done.

First things first! Get all the carpet out the house to Reduce Funky Smells and Terrible Ugliness.


Here is a photo of second parlor, pre-carpet removal.

Here's Pam using the shopvac to clean under the old carpet, but above the old linoleum in one of the bedrooms.

At the end of day the old carpet is just a heap...