All Hands on Deck!

For Christmas my sister, brother and I decided to give my mom money, young good-looking labor (that's me), and plans to build a new deck.

 

We started digging the holes for the new footers two weeks ago. There are only two inspections that must be done. One is of the holes and the second is the final inspection of the finished deck. I have to say we dug 9 holes and those were some of the best looking holes I have ever dug. My hands however begged that they are never put through that again. Needless to say our holes passed inspection.
Now on to the next phase: pouring the footers.

Last Saturday we rented a portable cement mixer and bought 25 (that's twenty-five!) 80 pound bags of concrete. When you have to move them two or three times they start to feel heavier than 80 pounds. We got all of the footers poured and j bolts installed to support the new posts.
This brings us to phase 2: buying lumber!

Enter Sunday. My brother finished the shopping list and we head over to Menards to buy our materials only to find out we can only rent a standard pick-up truck. We have 16' joists to buy so there is no way the 8' bed on the truck will work. So we do the next logical thing, we call Home Depot to rent their truck. Turns out they will hold it for 30 mins and it has a 10'-12' bed so better but not ideal. Carey and I continue to pick up the mounting brackets etc while Hubby runs over to get the truck only to realize he doesn't have his insurance card on him. Luckily I carry mine in my purse so even though he had to make two trips its better than not having a truck. Just as he finishes the paperwork the same people he saw at Menards walked in to rent the truck!! That was too close for comfort. Once we paid for everything we could go around back to pick up the lumber. They have a huge barn and where we picked out everything we needed. Halfway through loading the truck an alarm goes off. Yes there is a weight limit on the truck! We continued to load while the alarm continues to sound. It wasn't the most annoying sound in the world but once we turned the truck on and put it into drive it went off! We made a total of two trips to get everything.
Which brings up phase 3: DEMO!!!

This is probably the best and most dangerous part. My brother and I start tearing off what's left of the railing. He moves on to the deck boards while I do the treads on the stairs. All of this is gone by the time Tim Tim returns from taking the truck back to Home Depot. (I am pretty sure he took the scenic route.) Once he gets back he is put to work removing the old joists while I take a breather. They finished that and I started removing the carriage bolts on the posts to remove the last bit of framing. We found out the joist hangers were rusted out, the only two posts supporting the deck were half rotten and the ledger board attached to the house was starting to rot. Its a miracle that this thing was standing for 29 years. I did not see us making it through demolition without getting a tetanus shot, surprisingly enough we did!
All preceding phases bring us to phase 4: Rebuilding the deck.

This Saturday and Sunday will consist of lots and lots of framing! Not only are we rebuilding the deck we torn down but we are building her a second lower deck. This will give her a multi-level deck with more space to lounge and relax. 

So far it has been really hard, intense work but the satisfaction of building the deck ourselves is worth it. Just knowing the deck is secure makes me reassured that someone won't fall through when they walk on it. By the time we are finished we will be able to host a large party on the deck and know its not going to budge!