Designing the Balcony

Our poor balcony needs replacing pronto! Part of the support has snapped and the boards are rotting. Instead of doing this project ourselves, for the first time in our lives, we are hiring someone to take care of it. It's a strange concept for me to not be undertaking a project, but it would probably take us the whole summer to complete. The professionals will have it done in about a week! Gives us more time to work on projects we want to do and enjoy our summer. 

Rotting Boards and Snapped Support Beam

However, they are only building it for us, we still have control over design! So we have been working through ideas for railings. The main footprint of the balcony has to stay the same, or we would need a building permit and it would be a major cost to change the cement supports on the driveway. ​

Idea 1: Remove Balcony

We even thought about removing the balcony completely and adding a Juliette balcony instead, which would be a lot cheaper. However, I think we have come to the conclusion that we like having the use of the balcony. ​ Although, the house actually looks a lot better without the balcony than I thought it would.

How the house would look without the balcony.

Idea 2: Dark Wood with Aluminum Railing

We originally wanted to use composite for the boards, to limit the maintenance we would have to do in the future, instead of the wood. However, it was just too expensive, especially since we would like to have a fancier railing. Turns out glass railings are the most expensive! So, I came up with a design that would incorporate some glass and some aluminum, which is still costly but not nearly as much. 

We are still tweaking the plan for the railing, but we are moving forward with the balcony. Should be starting construction near the beginning of June. So close, and so exciting!