How to stretch a porch

I don't want to get too maudlin here, but I did a lot of reflection around New Year's, and one of the blessings I went back to count was Arnold: Losing Ref was horrible, but his loss brought the amazing gain of getting to know Dollie, Shawn and their dear, brilliant uncle.

He doesn't assume; he analyzes, measures, experiments, corrects and then acts with great resolve. Having considered all the possibilities, he almost invariably comes up with the most elegant, simplest and most practical solution.

My case in point here is our front porch, which now has at least a foot more usable space than it did when Marvin, our home's previous owner, was sitting there and said hello to us as we first walked up the street all those years ago.

The side columns, you see, are indented from the sides of the slab on which the porch sits. After taking a good, hard look at them, Arnold invented new corners -- both to give us more space and to tie the railing better to the edges of the house itself.

That meant smaller, lightly proportioned, corner posts. It brought us one extra spindle on each side of the porch. And the way he and Brantley constructed the corner units, it resulted in incredible stability.

I know that every time I sit on this porch, I'll think of Ref's questions about how the decking ought to go down, Shawn's commitment to Ref's promises -- and Arnold's master-craftsman solutions to the questions that arose.

Mr. B and I were screwing a railing in yesterday, and before he did the final fastening he asked me whether I thought it was evenly spaced on the board underneath. I moved my fingers along the board, and only later did it dawn on me that that's what I'd seen Arnold doing all those times, testing by touch, seeing by feeling.

Thank you, Arnold, for teaching me so much, so freely.