Believe it or not, a beautiful porch can be built very easily and quickly. It would probably be a simple one, to be honest, but maybe not so. If you put a lot of effort into it and let your creativity go wild, it can look amazing, but will surely not be cramped, unusable or unattractive. So, prepare to roll up your sleeves during the upcoming weekend and create something great, such as a lovely platform deck. In this article, you will find a step-by-step guide to building a porch. Even if you happen not to particularly fancy it, this guide can help you realize that building a porch can be done without any difficulties at all.
Preparation
First of all, you will need to get fully and properly equipped for this kind of a job. Let us start with materials. You will need pressure-treated boards and posts, cedar decking, rustproof lag and deck screws, some measuring tape, caulk and pier blocks.The quantity of these materials varies depending on the size of your backyard. The next step is getting the right tools. A drill, a circular saw, a utility knife, a hammer, an impact and a socket wrench, a shovel and a concrete mixer should be enough for building an excellent porch. Even though these are pretty much basic tools everyone owns, it might happen that you lack some of them.You do not want to realize this is the case in the middle of your work, so check if you have everything you need and, if you miss anything mentioned above, buy it as soon as possible. The easiest way to do this is to find tools online, so you do not have to mess around the shops and waste your precious time.
Building process
It is best if you do all of this on your own or with the help of your friends and family, instead of hiring a contractor, since the feeling you will get after having finished the job is rather indescribable. Start by creating a comprehensive plan based on the measures of the area where you want to install your porch. Having this done, everything else will be a piece of cake. You need to start with attaching a ledger board along the wall of your house, making certain that it stays leveled. It is advised to install a drip edge onto it in order to protect both your house and the porch from any damages water can cause during the rainy season. Hopefully, you already know that the caulk and the screws are meant to be used for connecting all of the elements you own at this point and also how to do it properly. Now you are to place the support beams and pier blocks, making sure along the way that they are parallel and not too far from each other. The support beams should be connected to the pier blocks with a joint flush. The next step is placing the floor joists and, by the time you have started doing this, you will be really close to the end of the whole process. Keep in mind that you need to measure extremely precisely, since one wrong measurement can ruin everything you are trying to do. After the floor joists, you could start dealing with the gate clearance and the walk space, which leads to the final step-getting a charming fence or leaving the porch open, so everyone can fully admire you and your skills.
As you can see,without breaking a sweat, even bare ground can be turned into a phenomenal place for entertainment where you can do anything that crosses your mind, from relaxing after a hard day to partying hard during the warm summer nights.
