HGTV'd out

As I mentioned in a previous post, my honey-do list for our new house is ever expanding.  Originally, screening in the lower deck was not on this list.  But after three months here, contacting eight different individuals/companies, having two of those eight actually return a call and come out to look at the property, and zero of those two failing to get back with me with ANY response, despite my repeated calls....well you see where this is going.  As my longtime reader(s) will recall, this isn't my first trip to the rodeo as far as screening in porches goes.  When we moved to New Mexico three years ago, one of our first projects was screening in the back porch, as our neighbors did everything in their power to encourage mosquito breeding.  You can find the details from that project here and here.  As that house was a rental, we went with a very bare-bones-how-cheap-can-we-do-this theme--and the ghetto fabulousness shows.

 

This time around, though, as we are now homeowners, and plan on being in this house forever as long as the McMenammy's live down the street, I knew I needed to bring my A game.  After much googling and Internet trolling, I decided to go with the Screen Tight system, which you can get through Home Depot.  After drawing up some plans, I made my first of many trips to Home Depot.  

The first step was just framing out the deck.  While the bare bones were already in place,

 I knew I'd need to add some additional framework to make the screen sections more manageable as well as to support the structure.  This part took pretty much the entire Labor Day weekend, but Monday evening it appeared that all was in place. 

Next came the base plates for the Screen Tight system.  After a couple of late nights and another weekend, these were all in place.  Now, finally, lets put some screen up already!  As I didn't race at Redman, I came back that afternoon and had plenty of energy to try and finish this beast up.

Screens in place, time for for the final step, putting on the exterior strips to make it look pretty.  This was quickly accomplished, and Voila!

  Screened-in porch, check.  Time to sit back, relax, prop my feet up...what's that dear?  Oh, the stone path on the side of the house needs to be finished?  Yes, dear...

Really, though, I can't complain.  I do love getting to use my power tools, and J knows this:-).  Plus I've always been the type who'd rather do something myself, and make sure it's done to my standard, than pay someone else to do it, and possibly do a subpar job.  And H is such a wonderful little helper, he wants to do everything I do and it's so incredibly precious.

Until next time friends!