We Floored Our Screened-In Porch for Less Than $100!

Martie Big Creek Farmhouse Remodel child labor, floored our screened-in porch for less than $100, home improvement project, screened-in porch, vinyl tile squares, wood underlayment 10 Comments

Well…. we almost floored our screened-in porch.

halfway completed floor We’re not done yet, but we will come in under $100 when it’s all tallied up!  Flooring our screened-in porch was the one project we had slated for spring break, and thanks to Coach, a pretty day, and a little bit of child labor, it’s almost there!  Read on to find out how we floored our screened-in porch for less than $100! Finally, a home improvement project that doesn’t break the bank!

The screened-in porch used to be just part of a deck that wrapped around the front of the house, right outside the master bedroom window.  Madre thought the little area would make a good greenhouse at one time, and she surrounded it with plastic to put her plants out there in the winter.  It was still too cold, so that idea got nixed.  Her next idea was a keeper, though…screen it in!  She had her favorite handy-men come do the job, and add French doors in the master bedroom.  It’s on the West side of the house, so it’s perfect for watching the sunset! screened-in porch This screened-in porch was the one thing that made it hard for Madre to move, because she’d only had it a little while when the move took place.  She comes to visit me, though, and we hang out on the cute little porch quite often.

The floor was just a deck floor to start out.  Madre, or the favorite handy-men, or someone… put down black tar paper over the deck boards, and then Madre found the perfect sized scrap of carpet somewhere and stapled it down herself.  It looked pretty smart when she first did it, but it had begun to look…and smell…pretty bad.  You know all about my wandering dogs, right?

Roll

Roll

 

Rock

Rock

They’ve both had a walkabout since we moved here, disappearing for days and coming home scrawny and tired.  I think they’ve learned a valuable lesson in their adventures (that there’s no place like home), but I was so heartbroken and distraught over their separate absences that I put a big, fluffy dog bed on my screened-in porch and started locking them in it at night.  I needed them close, and I needed to be able to see them.  I can see them, and we can smell them, too!  Carpet holds everything…doggie odors, a couple of spilled drinks, rain water-turned-sour…it was time for the carpet to go.

porch carpet

You see who didn't want to leave, even after everything had been taken away. Sweet Rocky.

You see who didn’t want to leave, even after everything had been taken away. Sweet Rocky.

This is where Roll took his stance against the carpet removal.

This is where Roll took his stance against the carpet removal.

Coach and I went to Home Depot and grabbed some of this wood underlayment. underlayment

You can click the lovely image for the details. We only needed 3 sheets to cover the whole floor, so it was around $39.

 

The sun was already beginning to set...

The sun was already beginning to set…

project panel floor 2

We already had a little bit of vinyl tile squares left from when we had our master bathroom remodeled, and it was enough to get us this far.

Again, click the image to get the specifics.

Again, click the image to get the specifics.

It’s only $20.70 for the whole box, which we’ll need one more of, plus about 15 loose tiles.  So, even figuring in the dollar amount of what we already had leftover, we’ll spend roughly $35-40 on tiles.  We only have about $8 worth of nails in the whole project, so we actually are coming in well under $100!

It looks so much better already, and we’ll have it finished up by the end of the week.

I keep saying “we” and “us”, when actually, I had nothing to do with it.  Coach and the girls did this project together, and I’m super-impressed with how well they’ve done so far!

Child labor in action!

Child labor in action!

Pooh and Tigger can’t wait to finish it up, and I can’t wait to see it finished so I can brag on all of their hard work!

So, that’s how we they floored the screened-in porch for under $100!  Thanks to The Home Depot, a little child labor and a pretty day, we no longer have smelly, dirty carpet to contend with.  I think the dogs will even like it better, once they get used to it!

What home improvement projects do you have going this spring?  Many of you have followed along on our progress here at Big Creek, and know that our next major project is restructuring several floors inside the house…that will cost significantly more than $100.  Maybe that’s why the screened-in porch project was so exciting, that it was do-able in a day, and was very inexpensive!  I’ll show you the real “after” once we get a chance to pick up more tiles and our child laborers get them stuck down…it’s going to look awesome!

X,O,X,O,   Martie

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