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Let me explain...This picture shows the original front of the house. The large gable on the roof, and everything to the right and below that, is an addition to the original house, built in 1951. Behind what looks like brown paneling, at ground level, is a poured concrete, 3-door, 6-car garage. That makes the foundation for the house addition above. The first 2 bays of that garage are below the white wall in the center of the picture. The last bay is below the open porch above. You can see two small windows(one of them partially in the shade below the porch) and a sliding glass door(at far left) that cover the openings for each garage bay.
Here is a close-up of the last bay of that 'garage' (which is now a bedroom) with plywood covering the old garage door opening. Above that is what was the outside porch. Framing was built to extend the white wall you see on the left all the way to the outside edge of the 'porch'. A section of the old railing in front was removed to allow for material delivery. The rest will be torn out and replaced later.
Here is the opposite (inside) view of the extended wall in the above picture. The door and window framing is in place and will be cut out soon. To the right is the old exterior of the house (where the new doors are stacked). The new framing on the left replaces the old porch railings and 4x4's and is a much stronger support for the roof than before. The concrete floor of the porch is also the bedroom ceiling for downstairs. Keep this in mind... It's a key point to why we're doing this!
Here you can see the front right corner of the house. The windows will let the porch maintain its open feeling while enclosing the airspace above the bedroom. The whole reason for all this work is to stop the sweating that occurs in the winter. The 8-inch thick poured concrete walls and ceilings "rain" condensation if you heat that garage (bedroom) area below that porch! The side wall of that room downstairs, half-painted red, also sweats badly inside.
The porch floor and sidewall are the only ones exposed the the elements. Enclosing the ceiling/floor and the sidewall will insulate them and thus stop the condensation from forming in the first place. The scaffolding and ladder in the picture are sitting on a new 10x35 slab where a new storage area/shop will be built to enclose the aforementioned wall.
Now it's taking shape! At this point the two end doors and windows are installed and, as you can see, we're starting on all the side windows. A door-sized piece of plywood covering a hole in the concrete wall just below the two windows will be an access door to the new shop from the downstairs(not built yet, but soon). Once installed, the windows upstairs will give us back the view from the porch we used to enjoy of the N.W. Arkansas and S.W. Missouri landscape.
Back to the front of the house! With door and window installed, it begins to take its final form. The 4x4 posts will eventually be replaced and a new-style railing installed the full lenth of the walkway, down to and around the far right corner. Extending the wall to the right leaves a nice, covered, 4-foot walkway past the door and all the way to the corner. The green pipe on the right, coming from the ground, is where the gutter downspout will go.
This picture is the opposite wall of the previous picture, on the back side of the house, and has the same door/window configuration as the front. Both these windows are double-hung, so they can be opened, top and bottom, to allow fresh air circulation in the warmer months. We will eventually build a raised deck, at door level, to access the back yard area.
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