The Porch Project

The porch is as finished as I'm going to see it. There are a few remaining tasks left to do, but those are scheduled for after our departure.

The first week Kristine and I were at the farm, Reverend Floyd Grady mentioned that he wanted to remodel his porch. One of the farm workers, Iluir (pr. eelueer), came by to offer his advice...

He said the job could be done in 3-4 days, which pleased the Reverend's ears, so deconstruction commenced immediately. Iluir, his brother, Idonir, and I dismantled everything in a couple of hours.

Pastor Floyd and I went to town the next day to price building materials. The Reverend wanted to keep things inexpensive, but also wanted to have the job done right. So, from the get go it was clear that expectations were set too high. A day later we called Ismael, a constructor and member of a local church, to see if he'd like to oversee the work. I think this was partly due to indecision on what building materials needed to be bought (and how much), and partly to give some work to Ismael. He came to the farm to have dinner, decide what building materials were needed, and to give cost and time estimates. The cost estimate must have fit the budget because Ismael was hired to oversee what he said would be a five-day job.

I'll let the pictures give you an idea of how the porch was constructed. I mainly mixed and hauled a lot of concrete...


We were able to pour and brick the foundation, put the roof on, lay the initial concrete slab (the tile was placed in a second slab on the first), and put up the brick for the walls in 5 days. Kristine and I headed out that Sunday for Foz do Iquaçu, and Ismael was supposed to come back the next week to finish the job up in 1 or 2 days. Well...we got back the next Saturday to find them still working. Just yesterday Ismael came back again to plaster the outside walls:


I completed my portion of the job by doing a good share of the painting:

A nice (but not perfect) little room that took about 17 days to build. Ismael (from northeastern Brasil) noted that something like this is more than a lot of people have. The climate in this part of the region gets below freezing for about 1.5 months out of the year, yet 99% of homes are not heated. Something to think about the next time you are arguing about the temperature on the thermastat.

Kristine lent her handiwork to whatever Marina would have her do (mostly helping in the kitchen, and a variety of other chores). She wasn't as eager to pose for the camera I was, but I managed to steal the camera when nobody was looking:


That'll probably get me banned from writing blogs again for a while. Look forward to news from Kristine!