Help with front porch

portiafimbriata

Hello:

We have a basic front porch with three steps and a railing; its made of pressure treated pine. The "floor" portion before the door is for some reason nothing more than cheap, rotten-looking luan but the beams underneath are apparently solid. The porch itself is solid. I originally wanted to replace or lay over the flooring, but we made the mistake of painting the steps and the railings and learned the hard way that pressure treated pine does.not.hold.paint. The steps look terrible. I would like to know if we should (a) just replace the whole porch with plastic lumber or maybe rebuild it with cedar (b) just lay a new floor since that is the worst part - maybe tongue in groove composite decking? I would like a cost effective solution - any ideas how much it would cost us to redo it? Husband is not too shabby with carpentry - is this something we could do ourselves?

Thanks, Carmen

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bjbatlanta

If the framing is solid, I'd just replace the decking and rails. Composite material is more expensive, but lasts virtually forever. You would have to estimate the amount of material to figure the cost. Can't do it from the picture, and prices vary from area to area......

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