Front Porch Stairs

Most of the time people get snowed in. We were snowed out! Saturday and Sunday we received 31" and as you can see we had a lot of snow to remove to even get close to the house.

The shoveling took most of the morning but we eventually did get up to the house. I spent the rest of the day working on the plumbing vent system and the "boss" began installing tongue and groove on the guest bedroom walls.

Late Tuesday afternoon Francis (our kitchen cabinet installer) came buy to help us get started on the front porch framing.

When we had our porch pillars installed our concrete contractor placed them so the center of the pillar was at the location called for on the blue prints. When we built the porch roof system we installed the beams at the front of the pillars because that was the look we wanted. This meant that the front rim joist for the porch wound up about 6 inches further out from the house than called for on the plans. This, in turn, made the measurement for the floor joists slightly over 8' which was longer than called for on the plans and also longer than the material supplied by Kuhns Brothers to do the job. The solution was to install an additional rim joist on the inside of the posts and run the floor joists from there which wound up being just under 8' and allowed us to use the proper 8' material.

Because we added the extra joists on the inside of the posts we also added 4" blocks to add strength to this area.

After that hanging the joists was a piece of cake. When Kuhns Brothers says they sell complete kits they really mean complete. The company even supplied the joist hangers and the nails that are required by code for the floor joists.

Thursday was a busy day. I almost finished building the front stairs before Sears showed up (early) with all our kitchen appliances. We put temporary treads on the stairs so the delivery guys could get the large stuff up the stairs using their hand truck. A word of caution here. Don't install temporary treads without nailing them down. The "boss" stepped on an end board and now has a bruise on her leg that looks like a map of Kentucky. 10 minutes later I did the same thing. I didn't get bruised when I went down but the 2x6's that followed me and proceeded to land on my head did manage to make me look like I had gone a couple rounds with George Foreman. The "boss" just told everyone she gave me an attitude adjustment.

Here is the finished and permanently attached stairs. No more step ladder to get into the house! The trim work will all be added later as will the porch floor. We still have three more sections of porch to frame on the front of the house so it will be a little while before we start installation of the porch decking and railings but for now we're just happy to have real stairs.

That’s it for another week. Early Friday we drove to Phoenix where we spent the next two days helping man the Kuhns Brothers booth at the "Festival of the West", a celebration of everything connected with the early west. We have been accepted by Kuhns Brothers and will be training to be associate sales representatives later this year. We are very happy to have been chosen to be part of a very special sales team here in Arizona. Whenever you talk to a Kuhns Brothers sales representative you can be sure they are talking from experience. Every sales rep owns and lives in a Kuhns Brothers log home. This is not the case with many of their competitors. Next week we'll be concentrating on finishing the waste lines and getting a head start on the water supply lines. This will just about complete the plumbing except for the installation of sinks, toilets and all the associated hardware that goes along with those systems. The "boss" will continue with her tongue and groove mission.

Check back soon.