Layout:
Home > The back porch project

The back porch project

August 8th, 2013 at 02:02 pm

Some may question the wisdom of us spending 4K on renovating our back porch. Our EF is pathetic, and our college savings is pathetic. Our retirement fund is not exactly pathetic, but anemic may better describe it.

All of this is true, yet we are going to have our back porch renovated. It's not at the level of safety concern, but it is an eyesore. And, my 82 year old arthritic/diabetic mother-in-law and 82 year old father-in-law with Parkinson's have great difficulty in entering our house to visit their grand children. That can also be read as the people responsible for the gift that will allow us to renovate the porch deserve better access to our house.

The builder starts today. There is no rain in the forecast. Hopefully he's finished by the end of the day tomorrow. We'll see.

Oh, I almost forgot to add - we had the same builder renovate our front porch last summer. He stored some materials in the old family blacksmith shop. He happened to notice that we had an anvil, drill press, and other small blacksmithing tools. He offered us $500 for the items. When he's finished with this project, he will knock $500 off the cost of the renovation, and take the items with him.

I'm going to try to add a couple of images to show the current condition of the porch and walkway.


10 Responses to “The back porch project ”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    1375971313

    It is easy for us to say who don't live in your home. What kinds of repairs are being done? Is it a complete tear off and rebuild? An expansion? I'd love to see pictures.

    I find it best to prioritize savings in this order: emergency fund, retirement and then college. And college doesn't HAVE to be funded at all if it is not in the cards, you can borrow, work extra when the time comes, have the child pay and so forth. One cannot borrow for retirement.

  2. Bob B. Says:
    1375972902

    I went back and figured out how to include images.

  3. MonkeyMama Says:
    1375975898

    I don't have a strong opinion either way. I thought those in forum were rather harsh, overall. Like you said, you weren't going to buy a car or a vacation (or whatever you said along those lines...). Which is probably better than 99% would do with that kind of windfall. Wink
    We tend to put savings and retirement *first*, but have never lived in an ugly home. Just to say, you can do all that while beautifying/improving your home.

    I feel pretty "meh" about college - we've saved exactly $0 for that. But to be fair, there are a lot of reasons why. It might not be such a rock bottom priority if we didn't have an abundant amount of good/affordable options. It might still be of low priority, regardless, but maybe not $0.

  4. MonkeyMama Says:
    1375976228

    P.S. We want to see the "After" pictures! Looks like it will be a nice improvement.

  5. creditcardfree Says:
    1375984897

    I'm sure you will see a big improvement when it is all done. And yes, we want to see after pictures, too. Smile

  6. SecretarySaving Says:
    1375994276

    I guess the elder could enter the house thru the already renovated front porch. It's your call on how you spend your money. I know you've been wanting to get this done for some time now. I hope he gets it done today too! That would be a great turn around time.

  7. LuckyRobin Says:
    1376006788

    It's not like you all of a sudden decided you had to have a new back porch. It has been on the agenda for a while. And unless people have to deal with accessibility issues in their own lives, they really just don't get it. I wouldn't be able to make it up those stairs and I'd be afraid of tripping on that walkway.

    The forum folks were a bit...intolerant, I thought, when it came to the porch.

  8. Shiela Says:
    1376013417

    I reckon the new porch would look so much better and will probably improve the value of your home.

  9. baselle Says:
    1376020800

    Wow, I'll have to start reading the forums again...after I adjust my asbestos mat.

    I think its a fine project. You will see it, use it, enjoy it every day *first*. Your patrons will also see it, use it. The pictures, in my mind, show that the before is pretty close to a safety issue. If you sell and you didn't do this, I guarantee the buyer's home inspector will mention it, giving a buyer a reason to lower the price, and to avoid that you'd be renovating it anyway and all for someone else. That's even less fun.

    The other classic advice with a windfall is to spend about 10% on fun and frivolity. If we are talking about $4K - $500 = $3.5K which is pretty close to 10%.

  10. ohsuzannah Says:
    1376328085

    To me it seems like this is a good thing to do with some of the money. The entrance does look a bit difficult, and you wouldn't want someone to fall on it - particularly the elderly family members.
    Suzanne

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]