10 posts tagged “deck”

Stained the deck railing, tables, and chairs today. Walked out of Home Depot today with 5 nine-foot umbrellas, because I couldn't make up my mind on what color or pattern.

Also found the drop-in bathtub for the upstairs, small bathroom, and figured out what travertine tile to order. Getting close to tearing that room apart, which will be fun.

I sanded and sealed the main part of the deck yesterday. Looks pretty good. It's darker than I thought it would be. Next steps are to seal the railing, then maybe put another coat on the deck. I'm not sure I have it in me today. I wonder if my grass will come back, when I can water it again...

Just getting around to blogging this now... the deck is complete, as of last Monday. Well, it needs to be sanded, and sealed. I ordered the sealer online. It should be here mid-next week. I'll rent a floor sander from Home Depot to get it all cleaned up, then seal it up - just like the hard wood floors in the house.

I measured everything when the deck was done. It's just over 800 square feet.

So much for watering the lawn back there.

Next project is the upstairs bathroom. I plan to order all the tile this weekend. I already picked up a granite slab countertop with a sink (heavy!). The schedule risk on the bathroom might be the cabinet - which was the last thing I was concerned about. It might have to be custom built - which could take a month or more. But we will continue with the project, even without a cabinet.

The posts are in, and they are starting on the top decking. They ordered about 550 square feet of material - which turned out to be quite a bit less than the 800 total square feet of the deck. So, hopefully they can bring more right away.

I just moblogged a photo and found that today's Vox Hunt theme is "Under Construction" - how timely. I'm looking forward to more vox hunts - very cool idea!

End of day two, for the deck. It's all framed up. I snapped some better pics, from inside the house, with the Nokia N93 - much better than the old Treo.

These guys are busting out this deck in no time. Holy moly. And it's huge. You can't really feel how big it is from looking at the pics. I'll try to get a panoramic pic this afternoon that looks better. These guys told me they have been working together for 12 years, building decks non-stop, and that they have probably built about 1000 decks. I don't think they are having to figure any of it out. They just do it. Tomorrow, the railing posts go in, followed by the decking on top. Can't wait to see that. I'm going to need some more deck furniture to fill this thing up.

So, we're back in action on the house projects, after a couple week break. I took the old deck off the house and it completely filled a 12 square yard box - lots of wood. After that was the concrete pad in the backyard for the spa to sit on. That was not fun. The guy who said he was great with concrete couldn't figure out how to make it level without my help - and I've never touched the stuff. At least I didn't have to mix 60+ bags of concrete - let alone carry them to the backyard.

This morning they delivered the spa. They pushed a 1000 pound spa up the driveway, then up the sidewalk next to the house, then lowered it into place without dropping it more than an inch. Amazing.

Around the same time this morning, the deck crew arrived. Awesome guys. All from Romania, I think. Only one speaks English. They are fun to listen to when they're talking to each other. They remind me of the crew in that movie with Diane Lane - where she bought that house in Italy and fixed it all up. One young guy speaks English, the others are old, more experienced.

These are the guys who really work for a living. Me, I just type.

I wonder if one of our cats will use the spa top like a scratching post. If they do, I'm dunking them.

Dave sent me this video, when he noticed I was blogging about my deck project.

After a trip to Home Depot for saw blades, and another break, I got back at it. Here it is with most of the upper decking off.

Once I got the decking off, it was time to get serious and break out the power tools.

I got everything down except the ledger board on the side of the house. That's going to suck to get off, and I don't even want to know what it looks like behind it.

My Dog, Dallas, thinks I did a good job. Actually, he just wants me to throw him a tennis ball. Note to self: The dog needs his teeth cleaned.

We put it off as long as we could. Time to get a new deck.  I'm going to do the tear-down to save some money. I hope that was not a bad decision. So far, not too bad.
Here it is before. Kind of hard to see with all the plants growing out of control.

And here it is so far today.

Lunch break is over. Back to it...