A few months back we started on a project to redo/add to the back patio. I'm going to attempt to document the journey as best as I can and with as many pictures as possible. I'll try to break each post down into a different milestone along the way.

Background: Ever since moving in, the back patio has been a bit of an eyesore. Yes it provided shade, and kept things dry (the dry part was kinda hit or miss), but it was a bit cavernous and closed things off from the kitchen view looking out.






In the spring of '19 I had a few patio companies come out and they gave bids for a gable patio addition that ranged from $30-50k. In some cases these prices didn't cover the full cost (excluded concrete/roofing/painting/elec/etc). I knew this was more than I wanted to spend. I came to the realization that I should have been talking to a framer instead of a full turnkey patio company. The plan is not for an elaborate outdoor oasis with a full-blown kitchen. I don't want to over-build the patio compared to the house. Nice/Simple/Functional is the goal.

In June '19 we got slammed with a bad storm. This meant new decking/roof and I knew this was my window to get the back patio done too.

I got a recommendation for a framer from a good friend. The framer came and looked at the job and gave me a more than reasonable quote to do the framing/trim/siding/cedar T&G. (also by this point of the design I had added a shed roof to the left of the gable). The final sketch I came up with is what he worked off of.


The plan was going to use the following 2 pictures as a general guideline.



More to come........

10/23/2019: I begin/end teardown, took all of about an hour. Was pretty rotted out in spots.


Yes, the whole patio fit in the back of my pickup

10/29/2019: The previous evening/night only brought light rain. The tarping did a decent job, but ran into issues where the existing soffit had been removed and there was no place for the water to shed completely off the roof. Not a huge deal.

The shed roof got extended up and over over from the new gable to the existing roofline. In my opinion they built the pony wall by the chimney too high. This required the angle of the shed roof to be less on the back side of the chimney to ensure the roofline aligned at the top. Not what I would have wanted, but it can't be seen from the ground and there's still greater than a 2/12 pitch.


Decking begins


By the end of day 2, the decking was complete on the gable & framing complete for the shed roof.
Day 2 Timelapse: https://drive.google.com/open?id=152WtavLTraflyz1yyHpivKh_FP0fF2Dm.

The below picture was taken near the end of the day, just before the left side of the gable was filled in with a roll of tar paper.


The rain started in the evening and pretty soon after the leaking issues began. The tarping was done as well as possible, but the water was leaking around each of the studs, continuing down to the top plate where the soffit had been removed.


The rain was pretty hard & steady, starting around 8pm. Signs of visible leaking started showing up in the living room & garage.

A trip up to the attic quickly revealed the issue. We made a mad dash to the kitchen to gather up shallow tuperware that could fit in the tight spaces. I then spent the next 2-3hrs laying down in the corner of the attic emptying tuperware into a 5gallon bucket. I had a hodgepodge of 6 tuperware containers sitting on the top plate in the attic. In hard rain, some of the containers needed emptying every ~5-7min. Keep in mind, this was all in a low pitch corner of the attic, making movements pretty difficult. Between emptying containers, my time was spent hoping & praying the rain would stop while keeping a close eye at the radar. Leaking video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xvydOA8idK-hQd7FXkCY9NyKJOrUEKso

I eventually got smart and set up a camera in the attic for me to monitor water levels and know when they needed emptying. The rain eventually let up at 1am, but I still set my alarm to go off every 45min to make a trip up to the attic to check on things. Over the course of that evening/night, I filled up 3-4 full 5gal buckets that would have otherwise gone straight into the attic/living space. I now suffer from PTSD anytime I hear water dripping...

My live feed


Leaking was minimized to these 2 areas.

KDubAg said:

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Oh man. Sucks about the rain. I will be doing something like this once our old house sells. I'll be watching this thread. Hope it stays dry and they finish quick.

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You do know this is all in the past, right?

The thought of not having that gable permanently supported bothers me, even though I know it's fine and well now. For your future construction of patio covers, it's just as easy to go ahead and pour a pier/footing for the column that your concrete guys can pour up to when they place the slab.

Would have been a good idea to move the pipe and everything instead of just the heads.

Loved the siesta times in the video...