Let the planning begin!

image from Clipart Library

We had a few months of meetings with both Shug and George to discuss the best way forward with the porch.  We initially asked the guys to cost out rebuilding it with the same footprint, but despite their best efforts to keep prices as low as they possibly could, it was simply too much for our budget.  I really feel that I must point out here that they are both great chaps, and are always as accommodating as they possibly can be.  In the end, I think we went through at least three estimates of different dimensions of porch, external finishes, etc, and they didn't bat an eyelid!  I'm sure they must have been sighing inside (I know I would have been!) but they didn't once show any signs of impatience or annoyance.  We have been very lucky to find such great, and to be honest really rather lovely, guys to do work here at St Abbs ~ I'm sure the house appreciates them as much as we do 😊 

Adrian and I went through a period where it seemed all we did was think and talk about the porch 😧  Once we made the decision that our budget just wouldn't stretch to rebuilding the porch with the original dimensions, we then had to decide just what size to make it.  In an ideal world, whilst we would have lost valuable storage space, aesthetically it would have been more pleasing for the porch to have been simply a small vestibule between the outside world and the house.  We had a good look at other houses in our road of a similar style and age to St Abbs to see what design of porches they had, and they were invariably of the vestibule sort.  I do hope that no one saw us peering at the houses, as they may have got the distinct impression that we were would-be burglars 😄

Unfortunately we had a rather big issue to contend with in that when the original porch was constructed, a raggle was made in the stonework of the house to accommodate the lead flashing of the roof.  Obviously this was across the entire width of the porch and whilst it could have been "made good" if we had decided to make the new porch less wide, there were other issues to contend with.  Our house was harled, quite possibly when it was first built, and when the porch was added what then became internal walls either side of the front door were smooth-rendered.  This would have meant that areas either side and above a new, narrower, porch would either have to be left smooth or George would have to harl them.  Either way, it would have been very obvious as it's nigh-on impossible to replicate old harling.  We got so frustrated with trying to decide what to do that at one point we even considered having no porch at all!  Of course that would have left us with larger, and therefore even more obvious, smooth or non-matching harl on the walls 😒

At this point we managed to pull ourselves together and get to grips with the situation.  In the end we decided to have the new porch built at the same width as the old one, but only about half the depth.  This not only took care of the wall issues, but as you will see in a future post, floor and access ones too 😊