Back Porch and Stairs Are Useable

Friday a lot of progress was made on the renovation of the back porch (Previous post, "Slow Progress"). They still have some finish work to do on the porch and stairs, but I am able to use them - and I love it!

The non-pressure treated material is Trex decking in the color "Foggy Warf".  If I were going by the website pictures, I never would have picked that one; I would have opted for something close to the color of PT lumber. But, I trusted Zak (the owner of the company doing the work). When I had indicated I didn't want a darker brown, he suggested Foggy Warf as a way to help tie in the color of the (blue) shed to the house. After seeing pictures from one of his actual projects, I agreed.

The porch sections still need railings as part of the contracted portion. However, knowing that I have excess material, I have asked them to cover the pressure treated boards of the base framing also.

And of course the stairs still need railings as part of the contracted portion. And for an add on, I have asked that they also cover the PT transitions from steps to porch sections.

There is one piece still needed under the door sill as part of the contracted work. The white against the house is the flashing material.

See that dark piece in the picture above? Well, the home improvement center apparently messed up the order and added two pieces of Trex "Clam Shell," which is described as, "an easy-to-match shade of medium grey". In my opinion,it isn't a medium shade, but on the dark side. The home improvement store was informed of the mess up of materials upon delivery (they were extra pieces), but they were uninterested in taking them back at that time, nor have they been interested in picking it up since then (probably cost them more than just writing them off).

Anyway, I had not planned on those dark pieces being part of the build, but realized early Friday morning, that those would be perfect to break up the porch sections and stairs as visual notice there is a level change.

There is also other visual touch up work that I have added. It drives me crazy that there is a waffle pattern at the side of each step, and Trex offers no end caps whatsoever. Zak has figured out a way to deal with that. (the below is a snip of the first picture that is heavily cropped/blown up, so is a bit blurry)

I have been thinking over the last couple of years that I would like to change the yellow portion of the house, and now the new porch gives me both the incentive and the visualization of that new color.

Comments

[Cop Car]

Whoo, boy, you are right that the photo of your installation gives a different tint to the Foggy Wharf - at least in looking at the colors on my monitor. [They have come up with some intriguing names for their colors that I see on the Trex website!]
I do not understand your last paragraph: are you thinking of replacing the yellow with the Foggy Wharf color (or some variant of it, at least)?
It'll be interesting to see what closeout Zak comes up with. You may recall that on our back steps, the installers put the supports at the end of the step tread "boards" and a closeout "plank" along the sides that hid those ends.
BTW: I find it interesting that you chose to go with the shallow stair steps. When Richard built our house, for whatever reason (possibly the same sort of thinking that you are using since we were about your current age at that time), he made the back steps shallow. I about killed myself on them a few times. My brain just could not cope and I would slide/stumble down the stair. I trust that your brain works better than did mine and that you will appreciate them. You'll notice that when I had the back stair replaced, I made sure they used "standard" pitch - lol.
It's always a good point in a project when things become actually useable!

[bogie]

I can't visualize stuff very well. Previously the only other color I could come up with that would go with the brown is a green - hard pass on that since so much of this house was green when I moved in (even the exterior was green before they painted the yellow).

Then I put in the blue shed (I could have gone with a yellow variation, but wanted the shed not to stick out too much from that darkish corner of the yard.

I had no preconceived notion of the color that would tie in all the elements - just something that doesn't stick out so much.

[Cop Car]

A nice plaid might do it!