The best part: Paint! After all the work rebuilding and doing prep, painting goes very quickly.
Here’s the porch with all the trim on. It turns various shades of pink as the redwood turns the color of the primer. Hopefully the paint companies are honest (that two coats of primer will cover it), because California has banned the oil-based primers that really covered the redwood tannins well (air pollution, apparently).
So, we did actually get some rain. On that weekend, I worked on putting insulation in the walls, and putting up gypsum board on the walls.
The strange triangular bit is where the porch sticks up above the roof outside. The wall is really thin there – just the thickness of a piece of plywood – so I couldn’t screw the board on: I used glue. Hopefully it will hold.
Also, it’s rather tricky working in such a small space with sheets of gyp board. Sometimes I’d get the board in, also go in there to screw it on, and close the door to get at the wall, but depending on angles and the size of the board, could only manage two of the three. I got it done, though, and the sun came out. Above right is a closeup of the eave with all the bead-board installed, and the nail holes filled.
Arwen is still more adventurous than Bella. Arwen will go sit on the porch, and Bella will wait just inside, watching Arwen. What’s she thinking?
“I’ll just wait here, so if something scary happens, it will happen to Arwen first.”
or
“‘Curiosity killed the cat.’ Good thing I’m more cautious than curious.”
or
“I’m gonna jump her when she comes back through the door.”
Here’s the porch will a second coat of primer on everything. All holes filled. Ready for paint.
Janeen helped with the painting. Actually, she did most of it.
Done. Difficult to see in this photo, but we painted the eave the same pale blue that we used on the laundry room (apparently it discourages wasps from nesting).
Above right: The blue door has grown on me; I really like it now.
Above left: Next I’ve got to deal with the rest of this back wall…