In Which The Paint is Removed, Rot is Revealed, and Breezeway Repaired

 So, in our last installment, I started removing the failing paint on the siding and center beam. Honestly, the siding was in fairly good condition, and the beam looked okay after I took off the peeling paint. All I needed to do was to wait for a dry spell so I could pull off the existing gutter and roof and let the wet beams dry.

Yeah... So... remember how I feel about shortcuts taken by past remodels? Well, turns out when they built the breezeway, they didn't deem it necessary to paint the beams where the gutters attached. So, what do you think happened? If you guessed that water got behind the gutter and the beams started rotting, you get the "crappy remodel detective" award!

And I guess simpson ties and beam hangers weren't a thing either, since they just toe-nailed the beams into the siding using casing nails. Did I mention that water was running along the siding behind the paint? Get your detective hat on and guess how well the nails held up?

Yep...

The beams were kinda wedged in between the house and garage, but once I cut the beams in half, they effectively fell off the house. Seems structurally sound to me...

So long story short, I scraped off any paint that looked sketchy, used some CPES to stabilize and prevent further rot where necessary, and filled some voids with durham's putty to make the final paint job look nicer.

A lowes delivery later and I had new beams, hangers, corrugated plastic roofing, and gutters. I opted for the plastic roof sealing strips instead of wood ones after seeing how poorly the old wood ones fared. Hopefully they didn't cheap out and put in enough UV stabilizer, or that might be the first point of failure.

I installed the new beams, gutters, and roof over the course of a few days; nothing too difficult, although I wished I had remembered I owned an oscillating multitool. I can never seem to remember I actually own one...

In the end, it looks exactly like the original, which I guess was the point?