Construction Time Again

What it feels like to wake up to house construction— John Scalzi (@scalzi.com) 2026-04-24T14:26:05.759Z Spoiler: We are not going to die. But we are going to get a new porch railing, as the much of the last one was blown out by 80 mph winds we had a few weeks ago. The porch railing was 30 years old and as our contractor told us, had support beams that were too small for the weight put on them anyway (this is additional proof that the fellow who had the house built, also its first owner, had contractors who cut occasional corners on him). This was one of the reasons the railing blew out in the first place. The railing we put up will be burly and strong. Here’s what the porch looks like at the moment: Those are the old support beams. Please enjoy your time with them. They are soon to go off to a farm upstate, to play with other retired porch support beams. The same contractors who are redoing our porch are also going to be providing us a new back deck, because, again, after 30 years,…