Winjama: Finishing the Street-side (Back) Porch

The back porch of the Mennonite House. This is also the street-side porch. We originally were going to redo this porch at the same time as the front porch.

Naturally, as things go, our money had to be spent on other things that had broken or worn out that had a higher priority than just rehabbing a porch.

Street-Side Porch Work

Once the guys got started on the porch, it took them very little time to strip the old screen materials out and have a nice clean porch to start with.

Ender Cleaning Up

Ender's busy bashing the old screws and wood out of the porch structure. It was tough going for some parts of it, like around the 4x4 posts which are very hard wood and after being in place for about ten years, have become only that much harder.

Framing Going In

Here, they've cut the treated lumber for the screen frames and are doing a trial-fitting of each of them. Once they fit properly, then it remains for them to be stained and then the shade cloth screening to be stapled to each frame.

Staining Screen Frames

The guys set up a regular assembly line for this project. Here, you can see the staining shop in action.

Sanding Screen Frames

Here's the assembly shop. Rene puts each frame section together and then sands them smooth. After that comes the trial fitting.

Time For A Snack

Some of the crew are still growing boys and require an almost continuous supply of food to fuel their growing bodies.

Attaching the Shade Cloth

Here's Ender getting the roll of shade cloth ready to attach it to the frame. This shade cloth is amazingly resistant to sunlight. All the screens on the walls of the pool house were originally the roof awning in the previous incarnation of the pool. So, they had been in constant use for eight or nine years already before we reused them on the wall screens, where we expect to get another eight to ten years use out of them before we need to replace them.

Of course, if we suffer some other damage, like from hurricanes or other storms, that's different and isn't part of the longevity equation. If they don't become damaged from something other than sunlight, they should last eighteen to twenty years. Not a bad investment and the stuff works as well as regular screening to keep bugs and such out.

Shade Cloth Going In

This porch job is speedily coming to an end and is a vast improvement over the old screening, which was really falling victim to sunlight and storm debris.