The kids watching the carpenter work
View looking towards front of the house. New Steps partially complete (concrete is still setting).
View from porch looking back towards the patio
View from side gate (near the patio) towards the front of the house
Our front porch is in need of a little love but fortunately our carpenter has come to the rescue!
The poor L-shaped porch sits out there and bakes in the southwest corner of the house. The pine floor board typically need to be painted every other year (which we are behind on) and the railings are falling in a couple of places. In addition, we really wanted to add a second set of steps to the side yard. One of the weird things about our porch/yard is that there is no easy access to this part of the yard and the porch dead ends on the kitchen door. This work has been on our list for over 2 years, so we finally broke down and hired someone else to do most of it. In the past we added handrails to the main steps and did some minor patching.
For the new stairs, they have to fit in a tight space because of the steep hill down to the street but I realized that we could just fit them and a small paved spot at the bottom. I still haven’t quite decided which material to use at the bottom. I’ve gone back and forth between brick, pavers that look like stone and using slate (similar to our patio). The stairs should make it easier to get from the kitchen to the back patio without going through the dining room and deck. I would also like to add a small kitchen garden to the one side of the steps, since it will no longer be feasible to get the lawn mover over there.
