The Saga of the Front Porch

Spoiler: There is no resolution to this situation.

We thought we would just power wash the front porch, replace a couple of rotting boards, and put some DeckCorrect on it. We wanted to do something with the front porch in the medium-term, but it wasn't really a project we were ready to tackle right away. 

What you can't see in this photo is that those columns are actually holding weight. That's our bedroom and office on top of that porch.

I mean, the stairs are a bit not to code, but it was in pretty good shape. Or so we thought.  I bet you can see where this story is going.

Dr. BB pulled up a couple of rotted boards. And, as he put the crowbar on the joist below those rotted boards, the bar went right through the support beam.  Oh, man, that's not good. That beam is holding up our bedroom.

Now there's a hole and we can totally see that someone sistered up some beams against old rotted beams, but never removed the original rotted supports, so the rot spread. 

We plopped down thousands of dollars at a company that specializes in decks and balconies after three companies came out to give us quotes and recommendations that we not do the work ourselves because a) we don't know what we're doing, b) we don't have time to do it, and c) this is a load-bearing porch.  We were told that it would be done in the last week of November or the first week in December.

I called this morning to be told that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to fit us in by midweek next week.  

We're doing a relatively big (for us) holiday party on Saturday the 16th and I'm already anticipating that there will be no front porch at that time and we will look like the trashy house.  I had dreamed of garland and lights on the porch, inviting people to come into our house. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to let this dream go.  

So, there is a giant hole in our porch.  

The people who are going to replace it MIGHT be here next week.

I'm just going to have to let this go. I can't make the workers come any faster.  I can't do the work myself.  So here we are.  

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I'll update if anything happens.