One Room Challenge: Week 6
Week six of the One Room Challenge feels like the week we gained the absolute most on the visual progress front.
Last week’s uncooperative weather delayed our progress pretty significantly. Even though this week has been brutally hot, the rain has held off until early evening, giving us quite a bit of uninterrupted time to make progress.
This week was all about flooring. We’re trying to move this along quickly because we are having family over next weekend for a birthday party and would love to be able to utilize the space, even unfinished.
The first step of the flooring, installing bracing, is just downright tedious. While it can certainly be completed by one individual, we found things moved along so much faster with two hands. So Rob would hold the bracket and a sample board “level” while I came along behind and added screws.
I wasn’t available to help until yesterday afternoon, so Rob was left to do half the porch bracing solo. He did a great job, but having attempted to do a patch solo, I have a new respect for his construction abilities.
Just before the rain rolled in last night, we installed the final bracing bracket. We still need to install the beams to about a third of the bracing, but we couldn’t be happier to feel like we’re over the project hump.
I’ve had people ask what about having a back porch was such a “dream” for me. I have several answers for that, actually.
A Screened Room
Growing up, we spent a lot of time at my Nana’s house for holidays. She lived on a river, and we spent quite a bit of time outdoors in the screen room my grandfather built well before I was born. Without that space to gather, I’m fairly confident we all would’ve been carried away by mosquitoes.
A screened porch will give our family a place to enjoy our beautiful lake (hopefully) bug free.
An Additional Room
I love having our family over for parties, birthdays, and all kinds of holidays. We’ve crammed all kinds of seating into the house to accommodate everyone, but old homes can be sort of “boxy.” We’ve just about maxed out the usable indoor space, and it gets crowded pretty quickly when everyone is here.
The porch will give us an extra room of the house. We’ll have ample space (it’s 12 feet deep!) for lounging and dining. And again, we’ll have that gorgeous lake view for our backdrop.
A Comfortable Supervision Spot
I’m also hopeful it will encourage more outdoor play. Right now, the only place for the adults to sit while the kiddos play is in our fire pit area. But that involves going to the storage container and grabbing out the cushions to use before sitting.
The porch will give us a nice, shady place to supervise all of the swimming, trampoline-jumping, and fort-playing our two boys can cram into a single day.
I’m not really sure we’ll entirely finish the porch before the One Room Challenge is complete. We still have quite a few outstanding pieces: railing, roofing, stairs, screening, house siding installation/painting, furniture/decor.
We’re certainly going to make a run at it, but at the end of the day, we’re just thankful for this challenge motivating us to finally tackle this project.
Check out our previous weeks’ updates below:
