My entire goal for the week was to get all the smaller projects done on the porch so that I can finish this week (and I still have two days left) staining the wood on the porch because once I apply the first coat of pine tar to the porch it will take 72 hours to dry. Therefore, any other projects that require me to go out on the porch need to be completed first. I think I’m on track to finish it in the next few days. I will do my best!
Yesterday I got a little behind schedule because I decided to repaint the columns, the white parts of the railing and the posts. After I finished that, I decided to install the new porch lights. Installing the lights was a breeze. Accessing the lights was a challenge.
For some reason that I cannot understand, I cannot open the door to my workshop. And of course the new lights were stored in the workshop. After spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to open the door, I noticed that one of the windows was only ajar. So I got my ladder, opened the window and peered in to see where the lights were. They happened to be near the window, so I was able to reach them using a 6″ paint roller (without the roller cover), hook the box lid onto the paint roller, pull them closer to the window, open the box lid, and hook the top of each light onto the end of the paint roller and lift it through the window. It’s always so frustrating when stupid things eat up my time (I’m sure you can relate), and what a ridiculous coincidence this was! What would have taken five minutes (opening the door, grabbing new lamps and walking to the porch) ended up taking about 40 minutes of my time just to get my new lamps from the workshop. I could have taken a trip to Lowe’s and bought new lamps in that time!
Anyway, the bad news is that I have no idea why my workshop door won’t open, so it’s now holding many of my tools hostage and I now have a new problem to solve. The good news is that I saved my new lights and was able to install them yesterday.
The new lamps are the ones I originally bought for the workshop, but they ended up being too big. Instead of returning them, I kept them and decided to swap them out for the smaller lights on the porch. Here’s a comparison of the two, with the new light on the left and the original porch light on the right.
I really love this larger size for our porch. And I like the design much better anyway. The smaller lights will be perfect for the workshop so I packed them up and will install them in the workshop later.
And of course my little buddy Tiger kept me company all day yesterday.
So yesterday I crossed two projects off my list – the columns (along with the railings and posts) and the new lights.
I was really hoping to get the panels completely finished too. You’ll be happy to know that I have at least the front panel installed so these are ready for sealing and painting.
But I find it extremely difficult to completely dismantle this sideboard. I got most of it done, but the last part gave me problems.
I thought the biggest challenge would be getting all the screws out on the ends of the porch boards. Each of these was screwed into the edge of the panel. The screw holes were all covered with exterior wood filler that dried to about the hardness of concrete. So digging it out took a lot of time and patience. Once these were out I assumed the panel would come off easily.
Unfortunately that didn’t happen. I’m telling you, when I build something, I don’t expect it to ever fall apart. So I need to work on this last part today so I can attach the rest of the new fascia boards.
I was literally out until 9pm last night working by the light of my phone trying to get rid of this. But finally I gave up and decided to break up.
I also need to do a few paint touch-ups around the ceiling – touch-ups that should have been done back when I painted the ceiling, but I never got around to it.
But I’m making progress on these little projects. I’ve almost finished them all, which means I’ll be able to clean this all up very soon and finally stain the porch boards with the pine tar.
It’s coming! I can’t wait to finish this and show you the final porch!
