![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/NorthWall-ScreenPorch-Exterior_InProgress_SMALL_090117.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFor reference, here’s what the north side of the house looked like four years ago:<\/p>\n
The excrescence on the right is the infamous not-a-garage, gone but never lamented. The deformity sticking out on the left was … well, its purpose takes paragraphs to explain, but basically it was composed of pure rot. Only its window was salvageable. That horizontal window between? That was the back of the bedroom, now the location of the screen porch. And that window is now on another wall.<\/p>\n Sure, still a ways to go. But the north wall is now straight and solid and sturdy. And well off the ground. Unlike it was in May:<\/p>\n Yeah, you remember what it looked like in May. That’s now the right-hand corner of the screen porch. About which I could say all kinds of cliches like “sound as a nut,” “safe as houses,” “solid as a rock,” etc.<\/p>\n And here’s how the interior of the screen porch is shaping up:<\/p>\n There will be a wide trim strip above the shingles and a tongue-and-groove wood ceiling above that<\/p>\n The ceiling is the next step and I’m quite excited about it. I got some pretty, lightweight pine that I can install myself without help. It’s the prep work I dread.<\/p>\n When The Wandering Monk pulled down the two layers of bedroom ceiling, we found 1 x 4 planks above the defunct fiberboard and acoustic tiles. At first I had hopes of rehabilitating and using them as the new ceiling. But they’re in ruinous shape, will have to be extensively patched, and at best will work as a substrate for some other more presentable material.<\/p>\n My next job begins with yanking out or pounding in the hundreds of absurd nails Jim Beam and Jack Daniels used to put up the now-departed ceiling coverings and picking off the papery fiberboard remains clinging to those sad little planks. Icky job. And worse, the 1 x 4s are not T&G, so crud from the attic sifts through their gaps as I work. I must bundle up in hat, goggles, breathing mask, and scarf, and still end up wearing blackface from the powdery leavings.<\/p>\n Once that’s done, I get to wrestle sheets of tarpaper over my head.<\/p>\n Once all that’s<\/em> done, though, it’s just cutting and nailing that nice little ceiling. If it works for the screen porch, I might also install it in the bedroom … where there are twice as many ridiculous nails and scraps of fiberboard to pry off first. Ick ick ick ick.<\/p>\n But that’s for a later day.<\/p>\n One last pic before I go. You know how I’ve mentioned my garage-sale magic? How when I want something it tends to turn up, often quite quickly? Well, after the electricians last left, I discovered a bit of obviously modern wiring sticking out of that north wall in a location perfect to light the eventual patio. You can see it in the first photo, looping above the small window. I don’t know where it came from. It’s not something I asked them to do. In fact, I asked them to remove old, unused wires. But there it was. So I decided, oh well, might as well put a motion-sensor light there. So at the next yard sale I hit …<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n