About that porch....

Things have calmed down here....finally....

I think that everyone is over the sickness we have been swapping back and forth for the last 2 weeks.  Still keeping my fingers crossed though!

So....where did we leave off?

Ahhhh yes....my mess.  It was quiet for a few weeks here too.  I think the neighbors were worried we were done.

NOT!!

In Michigan, according to building code, this porch needs a railing.  It is too high up to not have one.  I would have loved to not have a railing, but oh well.  We looked at so many railings that I was starting to get tired of looking at them!  So many options!  But in the end....

  

....we decided to make our own.  Why?!  My husband thinks it is because I like to drive him crazy.  The real reason is that I didn't want a railing like everyone else's.  Plus, our sections are different sizes too, which you will soon see.  I bought the spindles at Home Depot and my wonderful husband routed the top and bottom rails to fit.  Then we assembled them.

We also widened the steps, which I lovelovelove!  You can see on the porch fascia how narrow they were previously.  It was so hard to carry things into the house with them.  You had to kinda shimmy up sideways with groceries.

Love the detail work he did with the stair rails!

Then came the very tedious job of painting them.  I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to have them red and yellow, but they should be shot!  I wanted more of the red, since my husband wants to paint the house yellow.  The majority of the spindles are red and the "balls" are yellow.  You have no idea how happy I was when the last spindle was painted!

Remember the old door?  I was going to strip it and paint it.  I liked the old door!  

But I love the new door!  We decided to change out the door since the old one was very small and the door swing was the wrong way.  I really wanted side lights with it, but we have a change in mind that you will hopefully see later.  For now, it is just beautiful.  I love that you still get the light into the house from the door.  That is something that we lost with covering the porch, the inside light.  I'm willing to make sacrifices though!

I think that is enough for today!  I do have some more surprises in store for you though.  I am so not done with this porch!

Hopefully it won't take me 2 weeks to post them!

Until then....

MUUUUAAAAHHHH!