Pending any repairs, porch-sitting season’s upon us

Let’s go out on the porch er, maybe later.

What started as an effort to refinish our porch floor has morphed very quickly — as just about everything I do seems to — into a major spring project.

By hiring out the floor sanding, which I consider the worst job of all, I thought I had gotten things down to manageable, do-it-in-a-weekend proportions.

At the top of my list was replacing 72 feet of the porch’s tongue-and-groove pine flooring. Though the boards are a standard size, 2- 1/4 inches wide and three-quarters of an inch thick, you just don’t go to the home center for new ones.

Noooooo. At the home center, I discovered, they sell pretty much only decking (composite mostly) or a variety of indoor flooring. What pine flooring they did have for outdoor use was much wider and thicker than I needed — though I can’t say how much, since I always forget to bring a tape measure with me.

They do sell the boards I wanted at lumberyards. It was an unfortunate twist of fate, however, that my hours and those of just about every lumberyard in South Jersey didn’t mesh the first Saturday after the floor was sanded.

I had other things scheduled that morning, including spending 50 minutes trying to find a parking space in close proximity to the mess called the Philadelphia Convention Center expansion so I could make a delivery. By the time I’d given up and postponed the delivery till Sunday morning, it was well after noon.

I launched my board search at 1 p.m. Every lumberyard within easy driving distance of my porch was closing just as I started out. After a couple of hours, I gave up and headed home.

I went to my workshop, loaded the fully charged battery into the mower, and gave the lawn its third haircut of the season.

Our backyard resembled the Second Battle of the Marne, except that onion grass was masking the shell holes Emmy had dug looking for whatever it is beagles hunt for at this time of year — rabbits, chipmunks, voles.

So I stopped, got in the car and drove to the hardware store for two bags of topsoil and some grass seed, as well as stain charts for the porch floor.

I returned and finished the lawn, keeping the topsoil handy, because I know Emmy and springtime.

My friends Phil and Bob — both woodworking experts — had recommended opaque or semi-opaque stain for the porch floor. Since I am replacing damaged boards with new ones — necessary if you want the wood to hold the stain — opaque will hide the grain but leave the texture visible.

Two coats for better weather-protection, and sand lightly between them.

Oh, and Bob said to go to a home center or a paint outlet for a better selection, so I needed to figure out when I could make that trip and the one to the lumberyard.

If I were planning to take on the job the following Saturday, it would mean leaving the house on a weekday at 6, driving west to the home center, picking up charts, then driving farther west to the paint store, picking up more charts, then driving east to the nearest lumberyard to try to order the boards.

I checked the weather forecast for the coming weekend. Warm, humid and showery. Another postponement.

The delay caused by the add-ons was extended even more. When thwarted by the lumberyards’ short weekend hours, I finished the lawns and plunked myself in front of the TV for the rest of the day.

By Sunday afternoon, the guilt from the sin of idleness consumed me, and I decided to touch up the paint on the front posts, as well as the trellises that bookend the porch before the roses bloom.

I also filled a bucket with water to wash the front walls — to get everything done before staining the porch floor, since I didn’t want to mar that newly finished surface.

As you’ve no doubt guessed by now, I graduated quickly to scraping and sanding parts of those surfaces as well as washing them — disturbing the birds that had built a nest in the porch gutter, out of harm’s way of the downspout.

I’ve already warned my family that porch-sitting will be delayed another month.

I’ll leave their response to your imagination.