Screen Porch

Before

Last week, Semana Santa, Brian got alot done on the screen porch. And I got a little done on my sewing. :( But I have to say, I am probably more excited about the porch than the sewing. (I was making organizers for the girls...how could we have come here with next to nothing and still amassed this much stuff?) We both felt the pain of trying to make things up to our perfectionist standards, here, where everything, wood, fabric, etc is substandard. Still, I think the porch is coming along nicely and now he just needs to finsh building the doors and install them. This will be a HUGE blessing to our family. People donated funds last year for this project, but Brian never had time to do it until now. This was a major project. The wood comes in a rough sawn state. He sanded it down to semi-smooth to prevent splinters. (This was done using a grinder with a sanding disk.) Then he painted each piece with a mixture of diesel and bleach, the Honduran equivalent to pressure treating lumber. Finally he painted them and cut everything to length with a skill saw, so the cuts were anything but perfectly straight. After the framing was done, he and Jonathan covered all the openings with a layer of regular screen and then another layer of hardware cloth, kind of like chicken wire with smaller holes. This provides a little more security as it slows down would be intruders. (Hopefully the dog will do more than slow them down!) We saw how important this last layer is because as the porch was still in process, during a break in the work, someone came along and started to rip off the screen we had just put up. If you know Brian, you know whatever he does, he does it to as near perfection as is possible. Well, the porch is not perfect and there are places that he looks at and cringes, but to the rest of us, it is a thing of beauty! (And pretty near perfect too!)

After

Since we live in three rooms, yes all six of us, having one more space to spread out in will be SO nice. And once this is done, it will be a place where the kids can play after dark and not get carried off by malaria carrying mosquitoes. It will be the best place to catch cool night time breezes. We will be able to entertain guests. I can hang laundry and leave it there over night and not worry about it sprouting legs and walking off! And we all will enjoy the hammocks!