The project that never ends... it just goes on and on my friends...

You may recall an earlier post (all 5 of you who read this blog) that we started fixing our deck. I know you are all dying to know how it turned out. Well, In Janelle style, I'll show you. It is much easier to put 76 pictures on here then have to use lots of words. Words explain... pictures show. Much better.

Here is the BEFORE picture. Grey on grey on grey, with some beige (that kind of faded to grey). Don't forget the bushes that are growing through the boards.

I already showed some demolition pictures in the last post about this deck. Here are some others... The boys really liked this demolition thing. It was hard for them, but they liked it.

Thank you Chase, hitting the board with the back of the hammer over and over, is very helpful.

The old lattice-- gone.

Crowbars are fun.

Yes, hitting with the back of the hammer again. Very helpful. Actually, I do want to mention that this section of the deck was screwed in. The screws would not unscrew. These boards were on for good. This one 6 foot by 6 foot section took longer to remove then the rest of the deck.

Painting the deck! This was really hard to decide. The deck was originally painted grey so we had to paint it. What color? We opted for white. I really like how bright and crisp it feels now. But I will tell you now, I never want to paint this deck again. And Andre painted like 85 percent of the deck. He never wants to look at a paint brush again. (yes we took the floor off before we painted the pergola roof thingy. Yes it was hard to reach. Yes we made it hard on ourselves. You learn as you go I guess. As much as we hate painting, you know we will have to paint again and again. There will be lots of complaining about this in years to come.

 

So... where are we...

One week for demo, one week-ish for fixing the structure, one week-ish for painting. So now it was the end of June and it was HOT. We should have started this project in April or May. Now we have to work in 98 degree weather. Well, we started every night after 6:00 ish when the back yard was in shade and worked until 10:30 at night. Did I mention every night? Except when we had a scout meeting, or soccer game, or something else come up.

So... Here are a few pictures of screwing the boards in. This was a lot harder then we thought it would be.  This big section of our deck is very large. It seriously took us three hours the first night to get the first 2 rows on. We were worried. But then it got easier and we averaged  5-6 boards a day. It took forever. Then Andre's birthday came around (on a Saturday) and we got to work on it all day long (and it was hot) It was such a fun birthday for him. And did I mention what he got for his birthday? A deck! So exciting.

Yea! we finished the big part of the deck! Oh yea, there still is a lot more to do. Notice that we worked in the dark a lot-and these were the longest days of the year.

Then we were on to the small section of the deck. There was a diagonal area. I just want you to know that by watching the Do It Yourself network, I was able to figure out how to cut all the boards the same. You put them all on and then cut them with a skill saw. I kind of wish we had figured that out earlier for some other areas. Oh well.

Then the stairs. We did have to replace one of the stair support things. (I'm not sure what they are called.) That was a pain- but we learned a lot. I learned that we don't ever want to do that again.

In fact Andre and I have a pact. We will never do our deck again. If it needs to be redone, we will hire someone else to do it or move. No exceptions.

So we finished the weird sections of the deck off to the side, but then we needed a step. The original step was very wobbly and when we took it of, I noticed how it was help on by 4 nails. We had to come up with a new step. While It may not look pretty, It is very sturdy.

This was the last thing we did. 10:30 at night before Andre and Jaxon left for scout camp. It is done! Oh... except for paint, the other steps, the boards we had to cut in half lengthwise, the problems with the... never mind you don't want to hear all the issues.

So we have slowly finished the bigger issues over the last month. We have other plans but we are burned out. We will either do them this fall or next spring or never. We will see.

So, introducing, the new deck (Tip: always buy deck furniture at the end of the season- it was a great deal)

So... We like it a lot. The kids liked it because while we were working on it, they mostly watched TV, or played computer and their brains turned to mush. I guess that is what summer is about right? 

Yesterday some very nice people gave us an Umbrella for our table. (Super nice people.) I didn't really think we would need one- but if we are out there at all between 12:00 noon and 6:00 pm it is an oven on our deck. So now it is even more usable.

We are going to put new lattice up. Unless someone has a better idea? I want to do that for sure this fall. We saw a vinyl lattice in the store- anyone know if that is good? 

Oh yea, there is one job that I keep forgetting to do- Paint the little stairs. (Conveniently missing from these pictures) I think I am going to do that right now. This truly is the job that never ends.