Over at Colin’s house, the front porch proceeds at a steady clip. The porch’s ceiling, so recently a jumble of roof trusses and exposed cable, is now finished with a spread of white solid soffit. A narrow swath of vented soffit encloses the shed roof overhang and forms a sort of border.

Our support columns got wrapped in a neat product called a post sleeve. It’s basically PVC (low-maintenance all the way!) but manufactured in four 5½-inch-wide sections with flexible edges in between. In other words, it wraps around a 6×6 post cleanly and with very little effort. Terry installed the sleeves nice and snug, and he bent and cut aluminum to fit around the top beams’ as-yet exposed faces. Every bit of lumber above deck is now covered.

Meanwhile the screen porch begins to look less like a deck and more like a room. Colin built half-walls around the perimeter, added aluminum sills for the screens, and framed the doorway to the main porch. Still some work to do here, but it’s moving along quickly.

Of more practical concern: we have gutters! A team from the supplier came Thursday to furnish and install them all. With the ongoing drainage problems at Colin’s house (and the gloppy Champlain clay that continues to plague his yard), it’s a big relief to shed the water where we want it.