Kat bought our house around the same time that I bought my condo in 2014, before we even met! It’s an amazing property on a large wooded lot with nice privacy and set back a bit from the street in a quiet neighborhood.
The house had a great back deck with room for an outdoor dining table. Being in the woods and in NC means we had quite a few usable months for the porch – but our nemesis, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, made the outdoors pretty much a no-go-zone whenever it was above freezing for a few weeks.
For years we were spraying for mosquitoes trying to keep the situation under control. We weren’t happy about having a service spray chemicals, but the mosquitoes were so thick in the air as to create a visible blood-sucking cloud.
We stopped the spray service when our next-door neighbor started raising bees and at that point we ceded control back to the mosquitoes. We needed to take more drastic (and expensive) measures to maintain an outdoor dining experience.
Last year, we decided we were going to replace the rotting front and rear decks with new long-lasting Trex Deck material and build a covered screened in section in the back. Along the way we cut down a number of trees, replaced the roof, and are nearing the final point where the back porch gets a screen added. Check out the album below to see the house as it changed over time.
We’re excited to use the new covered section as the temperatures warm up. We even plan on spending a few of our work from home days out there. We made sure there was PLENTY of power and that the WiFi signal covers the area!
There are still a few finishing touches we’re waiting on in addition to the screens. We need gutters and downspouts, to finish the paint on the outside siding, a few more lights and switches wired in, and some interior trim.
The next part of this crazy project is landscaping – but that may have to wait a while. What do you think of the new porch and the new look?