September 30, 2004
towards having a nice porch
Based on a comment posted to our site and on having noticed their work around the neighborhood, we contacted Restoration Builders of Virginia (RBVa) about working on our back porch.
The process of estimating and securing funding seems to have gone smoothly enough; it looks like we’ll have the porch secure and wonderful before the end of the year. I’m reluctant to write too much about it — it would be so nice I’d hate to spoil this somehow… The start date isn’t set yet, but sounds like it’ll be late October or early November.
It feels a little (ok, a lot) decadent to arrange to have this porch fixed when the downstairs still doesn’t have insulation or walls and there is still so much f*cked up siding on the house, etc.. There is a rational side to this though, in that getting the porch roof fixed will take care of the last of our obvious and serious leaks, and getting the porch and area fixed will get the damn pigeons to move somewhere else. And we need something nice - it will make a huge difference, replacing the most ruined part of the house with the nicest.
When we first moved into our house there were problems everywhere we looked and when we scratched the surface we found even bigger and more costly problems. The kitchen wasn’t working, we were camped out on the living room floor and had boxes of our belongs stacked in every corner of every room because how could we put our stuff away in the mess that was our house?! Facing all these problems and more (too many to mention) what did we do? Restored our dining room from floor to ceiling. Impractical considering that we were brushing our teeth in the bathtub (we still are 2 years later)? Of course, but so worth it.
I relate so well with what you are going through and know first hand just how hard it is to live in the house while you restore it. The camping out with a mortgage feeling gets old pretty quickly. I don’t see it mentioned very often but it is emotionally draining to live with all the dust and constant projcts all around. There isn’t really a nice haven to escape to.
That is why it was so important for us to have one nice room, one nice thing about our house. Restoring the dining room lifted our spirits and encouraged us because instead of seeing destruction, gutted walls and half started projects all around us, we had one completed nice thing to be proud of aboput our house. It showed us the possibilities and helped us to imagine how nice our house will be someday once we get it done. We started inviting people over for the first time because we had something nice to show them and it helped our families see we weren’t entirely crazy for buying this house.
I encourage you to whole heartedly to go ahead and rebuild your porch no matter how impractical it might seem right now. It will be worth it for all the reasons you mentioned but I think the biggest pay-off will be an emotional one and although it will lighten your pocket book, it will lift your spirits! Go for it!!!!