Front Porch! +Sculptura!

After many ridiculous bids, the highest being $5K, I designed this little porch and hired my handyman to frame it. We love it.

Before:

After:

Keep in mind it will blend much better in a few months after it "silvers out" a bit. We are so pleased with it and so are the neighbors. It made my day that a contractor/designer who is going to be building the guest house (spoiler alert!) asked who designed it.

Plus a little bonus I found at an estate sale today:
Russell Woodard Sculptura Chairs, now en route to be powder coated.
Yes!

Front porch

Painting the front of the house really highlighted how terrible the stairs look: failing paint, spalling concrete and that terribly-placed handrail. The quotes for removing the concrete ($700) and building a new front porch ($3000) were way out of budget. Back to the drawing board.

After many conversations with contractors and smart friends, plus a considerable amount of time spent on Houzz, I've just purchased the materials for a small porch. It might end up turning out alright. We'll see!

The general idea (mock up):



With this sort of relief:


The framing:


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Patio and garden

We built some simple cedar raised beds and filled them up with veggie starts. We were a bit late to planting but they are looking good!

The boxes are made of cedar fencing, which may prove not to be the most long lasting, but with major backyard changes coming next year we thought it best to keep it simple in case we have to move them anyway.

And here they are full of future food. 

(Note freshly assembled metal patio furniture from where we'll watch the garden grow. :)

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Location:Patio and garden

Studio design

I've met with two builders now to design a "studio" that includes a sleeping loft, bathroom and separate shed/storage area. The design will be simple, clean and hopefully cost-effective.


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Screen door!

The screen door is in. It's essential because this 1952 bungalow was designed with zero opening windows in the living room.

Ka-pow! Yellow.








Also, DIY light cover.



And ugh...I still have to paint the gutters and soffits on the sides of the house. Boo.


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Location:Screen door!

Paint!

Front of the house is painted!

(Painting gutters is misery.)


Body color is Benjamin Moore Gunmetal and trim is Benjamin Moore Graphite. The soffits are painted Sherwin Williams' Plymouth Green.
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Exterior design help, continued.

Well, this is never ending.

We still don't know what to do.

So far we've talked with contractors about tearing out the front steps ($600, even without replacing them), pouring new concrete (a problem because of the crawlspace access), building a wood deck around the existing steps (the contractor spent nearly an hour here, then I never heard back) and, finally, cladding the existing steps in flagstone and tearing out the walkway to also create a flagstone path. Whew.

And it's all expensive.

On top of that, we determined that we indeed have lead paint so the cost just to prep the house properly (requiring removal with an infrared heater) is as much as I thought it would be to do the whole job. We have opted to let the professionals prep the house and remove the lead paint, and we will get to paint it. Yay! (feigned enthusiasm)

Back to the porch though. I think we have to live with it as is for a while. We can move the crawlspace access for $500, which will allow us to landscape the small plot next to the stairs more easily and wait another year or so to build a porch :(  I guess there's no rush, but still....

Here's the mockup:

Upcoming: we are almost finished selecting paint colors!