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Through the tree branch to the left, you can barely see the old screened porch with stairs leading up to it |
The basement entry was also next to this porch.
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| The red arrow points down to the basement entry, circa 1960 |
The original porch ceiling remains today. It’s a mint green painted wooden bead board. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep this original ceiling in our new design.
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Mud room just inside the back door entry, circa 2015
Kitchen to the left |
The footprint of the old porch will remain similar to what it’s been for the last 100+ years. For us though, it will be a mud / laundry room. We’re planning to add a closet which will be accessible from this room, and also install the stacked washer / dryer here. Additionally there will be a
sink for hand washing delicates (and veggies from the garden :)).
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| Our basic plan for the new mudroom at upper left |
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| Mud room covered in faux wood paneling, circa 2015 |
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| View into kitchen from mud room, small sink to right for washing up before dinner |
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| Behind the paneling we found more green bead board and two covered windows on the north wall |
Once the bead board on the walls was removed, we saw that unlike the rest of the house, there wasn’t any sheathing on the exterior of this room. So when the porch was enclosed and made into a room, siding was just installed directly to the frame of the house.
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| Mudroom getting prepped for new windows and sheathing |
We had one extra “porthole” window left over from our mistake in the kitchen (custom order windows weren’t returnable), so we decided to add it to the mudroom. Conveniently, it was the same size as the other windows we had planned for this room. So we grouped three of the small windows together and will center the sink in front of them. The washer/dryer placement will move to the far right (east).
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| Mudroom with new windows and sheathing on exterior |
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Taking a break with Lincoln after a hard days work <3
Mudroom entrance to far left |
With the new windows and sheathing installed, Blaine and dad turned their attention to the floor. There was a small step up into the kitchen from the porch/mudroom which needed to be leveled. Also, the floor was slanted down towards the exterior walls, so rain would drain away from the house when it was once a porch.
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| Step up into kitchen from original back porch |
Layers of linoleum and the wood sub-floor were removed to reveal the joists.
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| Floor joists exposed, basement below |
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| View from back door looking in, original sheathing (thick wood planks) is seen in mid-upper view of this photo (which was originally the exterior of the house since this room was a porch) |
The joists were in too bad of shape to salvage.
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| Joists gone |
After leveling the old porch (future mudroom) there was a gap between its floor and the foundation.
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| Lincoln stands on new back porch and peeks in to check on the progress |
Blaine and dad added concrete to bring the height of the basement wall up flush with the mudroom floor. This is the same area where the old basement entry once was. It was sealed up with a cinder blocks when the new back porch was added sometime on the last 50 years.
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| New floor joist added after cement reached desired compressive strength |
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| Concrete added to top of basement wall |
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| View from basement, new concrete to left on top of wall, new floor joists and sub-floor above |
New floor joists were installed and then a new sub-floor was put down.
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| Good as new! |
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| Mud room to the far right with triplet windows |
Now the exterior looks like ten miles of bad road with the hodgepodge of sidings.
More change is coming though, so stay tuned!
