Curb Appeal – Part 1

We put our house on the market! In celebration, I am walking you through some of our projects that we have done over the last 9 years! Nothing sets the mood for walking into a house than the curb appeal! There have been many times that I take clients to a house only for them just to look at me and say "Let's move on." 9 years ago I was sitting across the street at a friend's house when we saw a For Sale sign in the yard. We joked about how neat it would be if we bought the house. From the outside the house looked vacant and sad. Next thing I know our house went under contract and we had 30 days to find a new house. While we didn't love it at first when we walked through it with our friends we saw the potential it had.

April 2011 - 1 year after we bought it and replaced most of the windows and 1 year before the drought.

5 Years Later

When we bought the house we noticed the front porch wasn't level but thought it was just to allow drainage. We had a severe drought in 2012, we noticed it cracking and the walls near the front of the house having movement. We fixed everything we could think of until one day we realized the front porch roof was not level. It was not very noticeable from a visual inspection. Upon further digging...ok prying up a loose piece of concrete we found that the porch was added later. The section of the porch we tore up was in the perfect spot. It showed us that not only was the 30x8 concrete slab an addition but they never tore out the old sidewalk and small door stoop. The concrete was so thin you can see the chunk removed was exactly on the edge of the hidden stoop. The porch was sinking all around the original stoop/sidewalk.

Planning

My dad came down with his transit and helped us put up temporary posts. They raised the porch roof to be level using jacks, which in turn showed us how much the front of the porch had sunk. Over the winter we had noticed almost an inch drop near the door.

The Dogwood tree on the far side was removed during phase 3.

Demo

At the worst corner, it was closer to 3 inches off causing the roof to pull at the front of the house causing the settling we seen. After getting the temporary posts in place the guys decided to see how hard it would be to break the concrete. It took 4 hours to remove 2/3 of the front porch using only a sledgehammer and a crowbar. We found only 4 pieces of rebar that went lengthwise. The concrete thickness also varied. Where the guys started it was about 5 inches, over the old stoop it went to about 3 inches thick and the part left for Mark and I to demolish was closer to a foot... Every now and then discoveries were made, for instance our river of acorns. I think it was about a 5 foot "stream." There was also the family of moles that would keep moving to the next undisturbed section. In the end we found them again under the pile of concrete as we were moving it. I know many will say why not trap them but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, luckily it seems they moved on from our yard. My parents had to go home bright and early Sunday morning so my Mark and I were left to do the rest of the demo on our own.

Demo Continued

We were working on the overall look of the yard so while Mark removed the concrete I bagged leaves and created a fort. A previous owner had the porch mudjacked making it extra thick. We attempted to use a jackhammer to break it up but it was only created tiny pieces. In 4 hours we made little progress... We went back to using the sledge and crowbar. We took a break for a quick trip to Kentucky, Mark needed to recover from injuring his shoulder, along with a busy spring of soccer games and real estate. By mid April we finally conquered taking out all of the concrete. We went back and forth trying to decide if we should pour the new porch ourselves, which probably would have been done sooner, or building a wooden deck. In the end we decided to get some quotes.

How We Chose The Professional

We looked up about 20 different companies that were either on Angie's List or recommended by fellow agents. Of those 20, only 3 called us back AND only 2 actually came to give a quote. The first did not give a good first impression, told us to stop working and he would take out the rest of the concrete. Then wrote his bid on the back of a business card. And by bid I mean a number with a dollar sign in front. No specifics on the work or anything. He didn't explain the type of concrete or how it would be poured. My parents taught me better than that, you want to know how your money is being used and the quality of materials. The second company came out, talked to us, gave an explanation of what and how they would complete the job. They went home wrote up a bid, and emailed it to us. It wasn't as detailed as we preferred but they answered our questions and honestly came in with a much better bid.

Start of the New

We had quite the debris pile we needed to move, which I had been doing by myself. In order to use them as landscaping in the back it was our agreement that I wouldn't make Mark help. Although it was tedious, so the last few loads of heavy boulders at the bottom he helped. No job goes smoothly and in ways it worked out for the best. They were suppose to start the 1st week in May but it was pushed back to the end of the 3rd week. We were worked between jobs

New Plan

My parents were traveling through town and stopped by to see the progress, the forms and rebar. My dad noticed that the porch wasn't lining up with edges of the roof. The columns would be hanging off the porch if not fixed. A miscommunication on both parties because we told the company the size but they didn't verify location. They were quick to come out, look it over and all agree on a new plan. Just ended up spending another $1,000, blah. We ended up with a larger porch and corrected the mistake that a former owner (whomever poured the porch) had created. June was rainy which hindered them from pouring as planned but they were able to get it done.

Lessons Learned

We learned a lot, we would still recommend this local company with the added caution...