When I last covered the area of the yard by the front door I was in the process of dismantling the old porch that had been up for over 10 odd years and was finally in such a bad state of decay that there was no saving it. After removing the old porch I built a staircase using the steps from the porch so as to have a path of egress from the house without spending any money. The whole staircase was built using salvaged materials from the old porch. In the process I also had to build up the ground under where the porch was since erosion caused a lot of dirt to run out from the area, under the house and out the other side into the chicken yard. This ground erosion needed to be corrected so as to prevent further erosion that would eventually lead to the ground around the block posts holding up the house eroding away and possibly causing the posts to fall over which would be a whole other world of problems. I had already started laying some bags of concrete as well as some masonry blocks I had around where the staircase would have to go in order to build up the ground in order to hold up the staircase. I temporarily used some of the longer boards to create a makeshift walkway from the concrete sidewalk over to where the staircase sits so as to have a safe path for us to walk on since the ground underneath was still full of huge ruts. I needed more blocks. I had picked up a few 4x8x16 masonry blocks, the half blocks to the regular 8x8x16's most people are used to seeing. These blocks were narrow enough to set in the ruts and be almost flush with the rest of the surrounding ground. Thing is, I ended up not having enough blocks to cover all the area that I needed to cover so I ended up turning to a bunch of surplus bricks I had sitting under the storage trailer. I moved these bricks over to the work site and laid them out between the larger blocks, creating a solid filler of bricks and blocks. With the blocks and bricks laid out the next thing I did was come in on top of all of this with a load of gravel. Unlike other areas where I would cover a large area with a truck load of gravel, I dedicated the whole load to just this area. I wanted to ensure that i had complete coverage over all of the bricks and blocks as well as the surrounding area, enough so that everything blended in to the midway driveway and surrounding ground, making it look like there was never anything here other than the staircase. This helped to serve as another safety feature since we can't have delivery people or other outsiders walking through here, leaving a trip hazard such as the ruts or even the bricks and blocks. By covering everything with gravel we covered up the hazards, and effectively laid a foundation for us to build the next porch over the area. With the gravel laid over the area, I did decide to take the post blocks salvaged from the old porch and lay them out to get a rough idea of how I will build the next porch. I plan on building the porch a little larger than the older one, extending across the living room window a ways while still keeping the same width from the driveway. I also plan on building the porch with a roof so as to be able to get more utility from the porch during the summer or even during the rainy season. Since I plan on putting the grill back on the new porch, having a roof over the porch and having it larger will create a food prep and lounging area that would allow us to hang out in the outdoors without having to create a whole other area away from the house for this purpose. Also by laying out the blocks I can get a good idea of how many more blocks I would need to set up the larger porch, and even plot out the dimensions of the porch to where I can make a list of the sizes of boards i would need to build the porch. While the design of the porch is literally in my head and would be planned along the way to a degree, laying the blocks out will give me a rough idea of the coverage when the porch is done. Also with the blocks on the ground, it'll keep us from moving anything over this area inadvertently. With the blocks laid out I continued on with another load of gravel to blend in the grounds from the house out into the driveway further, getting closer to the east end of the perimeter fence. There's a few things i have to do under the house as well that are easier to do now that the porch is gone, one of them being the filling in of ruts from the erosion under the house. I will have to be able to move blocks and gravel under the house and with the old porch there, this was next to impossible. In the meantime I'll be able to take care of all business under the house. As with many other large projects around here, I won't start the build until I have most or all of the wood that I need to get the base porch set up. I don't want to just start getting a little bit here and there and end up having a project stretch for months. After mapping out the size of the porch and what boards and materials I'll need I can gather all this stuff and set it aside then start the build only when everything is in hand that way the build will only take a few days versus a few months.
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