These two pictures show the house as it was when we started the project. The old carport had to come down, but before that could happen, the electrical service drop that ran over it had to be relocated. Then the palm tree (far right) had to be relocated.

I decided that the only practical thing to do with the power service drop was to put it underground. That was necessary because existing trees made in impractical to go over head to a place on the existing roof. The easy way is to have the power company come in and just do it -- but where we wanted to put the underground line was an old established shrub bed. They would have brought in a back hoe and torn up the whole thing. I elected to dig the ditch by hand, myself, and lay in the conduit and then have the power company pull their wire through. When he saw the ditch, one neighbor ask if I was going to bury a snake. By two weeks after the ditch was finished you couldn't tell it was there.

After getting the power line (and phone and cable lines underground, we needed to do something with the palm tree. The home owner finally found somebody that would do that -- they had to hand dig the root out and then get a crane to lay it down and move it. It only moved about 15 feet but that got it out from in front where the widened carport would go. After that, the next thing was to get the driveway widened and the new porch concrete poured. The concrete guy was supposed to do the preperation but he was backed up. I finally borrowed an electric jackhammer and tore out the old sidewalk and did all the digging and built the forms. THEN, the concrete guys came and poured the concrete. This picture shows how I overloaded the 10 yd dumpster with broken concrete. When the truck came to haul it away, I thought I would have to off load part of it. He finally got it up but the front wheels of the truck came about three feet off the ground before it finally lifted.

After the concrete was finally done I could start on the actual construction. By then the guy that was going to help me was busy on something else and I wound up setting all the posts and putting up the beams by myself. It was necessary to have this all done before the truss guy could measure and build the trusses. This picture is of the posts and beams that support the new carport. The posts are pressure treated 6X6s and the beams are double 2X12s. The beams are let into the posts and then bolted with two 5/8 inch bolts at each end. A 5/8 inch bolt holds the post down to the slab through a steel bracket.

Fortunately, there were two of us when it came time to get the trusses up. The hardest were the carport trusses that extend over the old roof of the house. They are about 35 feet long. There were only six of those. Then we found that three of the trusses were short and had to be made over. And the truss plant made some that we did not need at all. It was a learning experience for me. The area behind the trusses,where it goes up over the old roof had to be stick framed, using 2X6 rafters. The new roof extends over the ridge of the main part of the house and there is a small gable for each new part of the roof -- because they ar higher that the old ridge. The chimney had to be extended, also, because the new ridge is higher.

These later pictures begin to show what the house will look like with the new porch and carport. These were take after all the facia was on -- and with the shingles sitting up on the roof. It of course looks better after the shingles are on. We put new shingles on the whole front of the house, which allowed for removal of two unused skylights in the center portion of the house (above the kitchen and entry hall.

With the roof dried in (actually the shingles should have been on but I didn't know that) I got the dry in inspection. I had to talk fast to get the front beam of the carport passed -- I managed to find four sources that confirmed (and agreed) that the double 2X12 was capable of carrying the 1880 pound load that is on it. After that hurdle, and a weekend spent researching and worrying, we can get into the trim work on the project. This picture shows the "Pretty Box" that we devised for the corner of the eave. You can see that it wraps the soffet around the corner. It was fairly complex to build but has a really simple look to it. I think it turned out well.

This picture shows the stairway down to the dock. We tore out the old steps while we still had the dumpster. Then when we were ahead on the carport and waiting for the Brick Masons to come and do the wall, we jumped on this stairway and rebuilt it (we redesigned it from the ground up). In the background is the house and the backside of the carport. The painter on the roof is working on the back gable of the new carport that we built.

These are the final two pictures of the project. They compare with the "before" pictures that appear at the top of the page.

After we finished the carport and porch we went on to do some other things. One was the stairs down to the dock, which are pictured above. We also built this "woodshed" on the back of a little shop building on the property. Because of the window in the back wall of the shed we were restricted in the overall height of the roof. In order to make it more convenient to move wood in and out of the woodshed we put the roof on hinges. It tilts back when the a hook is released.

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