Sunday, July 23, 2017

have I got updates for you!

I've had a few too many people complement the deck I'm building...




I'm almost to the point of laminating the historic house pictures in all their glory and mounting them in the front yard just so people stop COMPLEMENTING MY FUCKING DECK!!!!


On the other hand, the porch is coming along nicely...


I haven't been writing because the whole process has been completely overwhelming.  Decisions that should be easy are all counterbalanced by our inability to afford building things as they should be.  The starry-eyed fairy me should just be able to wave her wand and have the various woodland creatures (not to mention a toddler who may as well be a wild animal) wield the tools and get to work.  I just can't fathom why people aren't lining up to build it for me.


Anyway...

I'll do my best to start to detail the building process later this week, but for now I need some design help.  The porch roof was originally cedar shakes, these will not be reinstated.  In an ideal world I'd use the synthetic slates, which would match the main roof, but allow us to walk on them when necessary for gutter cleaning and Christmas lights.  Those however, are way out of budget.  This leaves us with asphalt.  When we bought the house we were told that very little of the original slate would be salvageable due to it's age and how much of it was coated with tar.


We got an excellent price on new blue slates, and used these on the angles not seen from the front of the house - since we thought most of the slate would be this blue slate, we used matching blue-green asphalt on the back of the house and the schoolhouse.  Well, much to everyone's surprise, our slates turned out to be Buckingham, and were in much better condition than anyone believed possible.  So, I have a patchwork roof of blue and black. This was a screw-up of epic proportions that I can't forgive myself for, and it makes choosing shingles very difficult.  The roofs remaining are the porch and front and back of the kitchen wing.  We have enough original Buckingham for the front of the kitchen wing, so the decision is whether to match the porch roof to the blue or the black.  I'm leaning towards this shingle to match the Buckingham.  It has a nice mix of dark gray and black, with a bit of red that matches staining from years of industrial pollution.


So, am I on the right track?

20 comments:

  1. How exciting!!!!!!!!!!

    A few questions?

    Forgive me if you detailed this previously, but I am curious why you are not reinstating the original entry to the house?

    The new porch differs in significant ways from the original and I am curious as to your thoughts on this? For example, in not having the center "rotunda" be the welcoming entrance to the porch? This is so intoxicating in the archival image!

    I have no doubt that you have given all this a great deal of thought, and I would enjoy learning of your decision-making process!

    Oh! And congrats!!!!!!!!





    ReplyDelete
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    1. I'm certain I talked about it around here somewhere, but must have forgotten to add a tag. Long story short, the stairway above is the one the 2nd owners built during the colonialization of the now unsightly Victorian. The original stairs would have come out from under the gable to the right. Neither is an option now due to the adjoining land being sold off and the reorientation of the house. I'll talk about the changes later this week.

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    2. I am breathless with anticipation!

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  2. I can't follow how the current roofing looks, but when I saw the proposed shingle, I thought I would mention that when my house was re-roofed some years ago, I had to use shingles with color variation like that. I didn't want to but it was a compromise between code requirements and cost.

    To my surprise, once the shingles weer in place, they looked like a uniform color from the ground. (This was good.) So I would put a sample of your proposed shingling up on the roof and see what it looks like from the ground.

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    Replies
    1. I'm hoping to pick up a sample later this week, hopefully it looks as good in person given I haven't seen anything else as promising!

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  3. Seems like you are on the right track!

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  4. We are in the process of getting gutter and valley quotes for our slate roof. Ouch! Not as bad as I feared, but . . .

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    Replies
    1. That was the first thing we did, good luck to you!

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  5. The saddest part is how many people would build a deck on the front of their house.

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    Replies
    1. I've seen more than one beautiful house lose their porch to a deck "upgrade."

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  6. In last pic that roof looks much better. It looks elegant and kind a seems to be providing a good protection. Thanks for sharing this update.

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