It's not really a porch so much as a big top step with a canopy over it. The canopy has a steel roof, but it's not meant to keep the steps dry so much as to stop the snow coming off the house roof from piling up there and breaking them.

Here are a couple of pictures from when they were first being built, before the roof went on, to give you an idea.

The metal fence is temporary--the side yard is also my mother's back yard (since she lives next door, on the corner), and we didn't want her dogs, who usually have the run of the shared space, to get into any trouble while things were being built.

And yes, working a doorway in under that roofline on the wrong side of the single-story part of the house has been just as awkward as you think.

On the plus side, we know the roof over the back steps works for its intended purpose. When we initially started the project it was fall, and we thought we'd be working on the bathroom through the winter and then adding the side door the following spring. As such, we built the steps first, before winter hit, so that they'd be ready and waiting in the spring and we could get right onto opening up the wall for the door.

That was in October of 2019. Two months later, someone in Wuhan turned to someone else and said, "I think I'm coming down with something," only presumably in Chinese. And now it's about to be September 2021 and we're just getting to the part with the door.

This means those steps have been there, leading up to what was clearly not a door, in plain view of anyone who happens to go by the house, for two winters now. I'm sure the neighbors and various passers-by have found that perplexing. Maybe they thought it was some kind of dumbass fire escape? Whatever they thought of it, at least we know the roof does indeed keep the snow mostly off the steps. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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