The Porch & Walkway were restored in 2018
Repairing the porch was one of the first major projects that we undertook which felt really good to do. We had some projects that happened in the 8 years of living in the house leading up to the porch restoration, but none of them were quite as satisfying and rewarding as reinvigorating our outdoor living and dining room turned out to be.
Round 1 of Repairs: 2011 Move-in Spruce Up
When we moved into our little bungalow in 2011, we were fortunate to have a couple of house savvy friends who helped us peel and scrape the wallpaper & paint the walls. We didn't paint all the rooms, but we peeled the blue and pink 80's looking wallpaper off the kitchen walls, then painted that a glossy yellow. In our bedroom, which had layers upon layers of ancient wallpaper over plaster walls, we chose to prime and paint over it. Our arms and elbows hurt, but it felt pretty good to not have to look at all that wallpaper anymore. We did leave one bedroom papered in pink roses, as a tribute to the former owner, who obviously loved pink, and also because it was in nice condition, and our arms were tired. We hired a contractor who helped us re-floor and rearrange the bathroom. Another time, I'll see if I can dig up before and after photos of all this, and give some more details. We tented for termites upon purchase and the inspector advised us of multiple places where dry rot was present or repairs were needed on the porch. He also poked holes to expose the damage, leaving us with little exploratory holes in all the rotted parts. We proceeded to ignore these much needed repairs for 8 years while we got married, partied, worked, and introduced children to the mix. It's a good thing that our friends helped us with painting and we had the bathroom fixed up before we moved in, because afterwards, we were just too distracted by life to deal with any of it. Our next major project turned out to be the sewer, and not by choice. This (literally) crappy situation forced us to buckle down and give the house some of the much needed maintenance that it needed. 
There's this tree...
Round 2: 2017 Plumbing Problems
We got a deal and weren't outbid on the house because it had some minor* issues. Wallpaper everywhere, the opposite of an updated kitchen, and there was standing water in the bathtub, even during viewing. We thought snaking the line would fix it. We had no idea what we were in for. There were multiple factors that contributed to our plumbing woes. A series of large and lovely camphor trees surrounding the property, with their extensive root systems seeking water in the rich wet Sacramento soil below our house, were one factor. A house built before the modern sewer system, with likely copper or clay pipes leading across two neighbors' front yards to feed to the original City sewer line in the alley was another. These were issues that we had some knowledge of. We figured they could be fixed with snaking and root killer. It turns out that they couldn't. The final factor was unknown to us until we finally forced the issue. Here's how it happened. We moved in and had to have the line snaked quarterly to remove tree roots. We had the plumber on speed dial. We would also pour root poison down the toilet and sewer clean-out, but the system still backed up. It was sort of functional with 2 people, then 2 people and a baby in diapers, but we always had issues when we had guests and more people were using the bathroom. It just seemed to get worse and worse. The guy would come out to snake the line and work on it for a full hour, getting some tree roots out, but always hitting a hard obstacle in the line somewhere before it fed to the City system. We thought it was a big tree root, you know, from all the camphors. Turns out, it wasn't. In 2017, 6 years after we'd moved into the house, we decided it was time to have some family over for Christmas Eve. We predicted the plumbing issues would arise, so we resolved to deal with it once and for all. We had a plumber come out in November to snake the line and run a camera, with the idea of getting a quote to finally fix our issue. The camera situation was unsuccessful, with them hitting a hard obstacle, not being able to identify what it was, and advising us to contact the City and find out more about what was going on with the line. We were passed around between entities and temporarily gave up on obtaining a long term solution. We proceeded with the Christmas Eve party and it. was. a. disaster. With 25+ people over, all eating ribs and chinese food, the bathroom backed up almost immediately and we suddenly had NO FUNCTIONING BATHROOM ON CHRISTMAS EVE! There was literally nowhere to go. Our 9-month pregnant cousin and 88 year old grandmother...the children... everyone was completely and utterly bathroom-less on what was supposed to be the most magical evening of the year. As the hostess, I wanted to just crawl in a hole and die. 
Photo from the Dreaded Eve, December 24, 2017
After the Christmas Eve debacle, I was mortified and even more resolved to finally fix this terrible plumbing once and for all. We called out a couple more plumbers, one of whom told us that he had identified where the block was, and that all we needed to do was dig a small hole in our neighbor's front lawn to see what was blocking our line. When we asked, our neighbors were not so enthusiastic about us digging. They filled us in on the plumbing issues that they themselves had experienced. These neighbors moved into their house just about a year after us. Their line had also been going to the alley, through another neighbor's backyard, and they also had a blockage. They ended up rerouting their entire system due to issues with going in the neighbor's backyard. They also put in new water lines, which turned out to be relevant. They advised us to do the same. They did not give us permission to dig a small hole in their front yard so that we could see what was going on with the line. We were faced with abandoning that line, rerouting and creating a new connection to the City sewer, which was more than we anticipated, but we needed plumbing, so we started to get quotes. As we started this process, a development occurred.
Of all the entities we called to report the obstruction in our line and try to get resolution, PG&E thought there might be a gas line puncturing our sewer, so they sent a guy out one day and he DUG A GIANT HOLE IN THE NEIGHBOR'S FRONT YARD WITHOUT ASKING ANYONE! The neighbors were not happy, since this is what they were trying to avoid. The PG&E guy took one look at the issue, saw it wasn't a gas line, called it into the City, and left the giant hole there with some plywood over it. It was a water line. The City had not installed it. The neighbor's plumber had installed it when they updated their sewer and water line. They had installed a water line going right through our sewer line and we had been dealing with a system that backed up due to this for over 6 years. We had no functioning plumbing at this point, with 2 small children at home, we were showering at the gym and using the bathroom at Starbucks. Love Laundry was my second home. It could obviously have gotten very ugly with our neighbors at this point, but we live next to these people, and it seemed to have been an honest mistake due to old infrastructure that really did need updating, so we bit the bullet and proceeded to reroute our sewer system. Coincidentally (?) the plumbers we were already working with were the ones who punctured our sewer line with the water line install, so they gave us a small discount on the reroute job, the City reduced fees for us, and we got to stay friendly with the neighbors. We got even more friendly with the neighbor on the other side, because she had been dealing with the exact same issue. Our lines were right next to each other and both were punctured by the new water line. She got a discount to reroute hers while everything was dug up and connected to the City, and we both got working plumbing for the first time in years! This was a major lifestyle upgrade. Our line now feeds to the City sewer just outside our house, without going near anyone else's yards or past any extraneous trees. We also had the pipes on the other side of the house lined via trenchless system. This is supposed to keep the darn camphor tree roots out for good. 
Two new connections and cleanouts installed- WOOT!
While this plumbing sewer nightmare doesn't really have anything to do with the porch, I am prefacing our porch repair success story with this saga, to prove that we went through some real s**t that wasn't really that fun to deal with before we finally got to the good stuff, like the porch, and the kitchen/bathroom addition project that was in our near future. The pipes had to get fixed, which was the beginning in a series of major repairs that we did to the house. The plumbing supports all the pretty things we got to do afterwards.
Round 3: 2018-2019 Porch and Walkway Repairs About this time, even one working bathroom was becoming a constraint, as our children began using the bathroom more. Potty training was taking up a large portion of our toilet's usable daily hours. Working plumbing was great, but we wanted more. We wanted 2 bathrooms, and also the kitchen/laundry area needed some attention. We started to talk to local architect Matthew Piner about our options, and as we were refining the plans for the kitchen and bathroom, we realized that we were going to need a builder. Our porch was also rotting off the front of the house by this point, so we knew that this needed to be addressed. We were already thinking about getting started on the porch before we embarked upon the interior remodel, but then something happened that made us want to deal with this porch issue right away. 
The Crack
It was May of 2018, our 5 year-old son's graduation from preschool, and we were rushing out the door to make the ceremony. I was wearing our nearly 3 year-old in a wearable carrier, dashing out the door with a salad bowl in one hand, and I tripped on THE CRACK. I had a terrible clumsy fall, whereby I managed to save both the salad and the toddler from damage, but somehow destroyed both my ankle and knee. My ankle wasn't right for months. We were late, so I limped over to the ceremony with a bloody knee under my skirt and we took these adorable photos.
You see, not only was the wood on the porch rotting, the concrete walkway leading up to it had risen over the years, creating a very large crack in the concrete, and a gigantic toe-stubbing concrete lip on the side that had risen. You can see these problems in pretty much any picture of our kids playing in the yard.
. We decided that repairing the porch was a great way to test out our builder and get things going, even though we weren't quite ready to start the interior. We worked with a team of builders who are immensely skilled. They were enthusiastic to use similar materials to restore our porch to its full beauty, rather than performing a cheap patch job or introducing vinyl to a 110 year old home's exterior. The task at hand was to rebuild the concrete walkway, repair the rotting wood on the porch siding and floorboards, and rebuild the steps, which were askew from the rising concrete, and starting to come apart.
Here is a series of spooky photos I took of the porch in October 2018, before repair work began. If you look closely, you can see the spots where the old handrail had rotted off, the rotting siding, the holes in the floorboard, and the concrete issues. Also, notice the angle of that last step...kind of odd, but I guess it was made to go along with the tilted concrete.
When work commenced, the steps were taken apart and we started using the back entrance for all of our coming and going.
The Job- as described in builder's invoice, since I am not great with the technical lingo of carpentry.
Remove all rotting wood from front porch area- stairs, treads, siding, and stringers. Remove cracked and uneven concrete. Replace stair stringers and any necessary support structure. Framing Wood work -- Vertical grain Doug-fur for the treads, and risers. Cut, sand, prep and seal steps with 2-part epoxy Smith and Co sealer. 13' x 21", top step, 3 steps at 13' x 11" and 3 risers 13' x 6 1/2" Siding to match existing. 260' of redwood lap siding, mitered corners to match existing. Primer seal on front and back for longevity. Paint to match on front. Redwood heart lumber for cap material, prime both sides cut, sand and fit to match existing. Miniture crown mouldings detail under cap to match existing. Concrete Dig, place gravel base, frame forms and prep walking path, side yard path and planter box for concrete. Concrete truck, concrete pump, concrete finishers. Specialty Demo and removed both concrete footing side walls and front landing due to incorrect elevation, cracks and instability. Will form and pour cement for new support side walls. (In process) Framing- Will remove and replace support beam at top of stair stringers with 2 2x12' pressure treated boards . Landscape Root cutting and shaving to meet Arborist specifications.
We had a suspicion that the camphor tree roots had affected the concrete walkway and porch's integrity, but we had no idea how large the problem was until the roots were uncovered. These camphor trees have large root systems, and there was one particular root that was jutting under our house, straight through the porch area. Another portion of the root was causing the sidewalk to rise closer to the tree. After consulting with the City's arborist, it was decided that a 9 foot portion of the root would be removed, as it was far enough from the very large tree to allow the tree to recover. The portion that was closer to the tree and causing sidewalk damage would be shaved to flatten the surface.
The portion of the root that needed shaving.
Here is the portion that was shaved to allow for installation of the new walkway
After the tree root came out, the new concrete walkway was laid and the porch was rebuilt with lumber from Burnett & Sons, a Sacramento planing mill & lumber company in business since 1869.
Nice smooth walkway!
Our amazing builder, Brian Harvey, working on the porch rebuild
Once the beautiful wood steps went in, we started to get queasy about painting them. It didn't seem practical to leave the steps natural, with all the use they get, but we compromised with the decision to leave the risers natural. A new hand rail was fabricated and installed by our highly skilled builder.
Overall, the project took about 120 days. In the end, we were more than satisfied with the results. We love our new porch and walkway, and it gets a lot of use. We were 100% ready to proceed with the interior projects, working with the same team of builders. After seeing how our porch came out, all of our neighbors wanted to hire them as well!
2 Comments
Reading about your plumbing woes was both frustrating and humorous at the same time. Your experience highlights the importance of proper maintenance and taking action before things get out of hand. It's amazing how something as basic as plumbing can wreak havoc on our lives when it's not working properly. Leave a Reply. |
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