The Deck: part one

*Warning: this post is long and boring if you're not interested in other people's decks. Actually even if you are it might still be long and boring :-)

The weather forecast said it was supposed to be under 100 degrees this weekend so I decided to take Friday and Monday off so that I could have a relaxing 4-day weekend so that we could finally repair, power wash, and stain the deck, and replace the shade cloth cover. We could have done it over 2 weekends but we decided it would be best to just get it done in one weekend. (Plus I am easily distracted so its always best if I can start and complete a project quickly!)

We have a 3 part deck along the back of our house and to say it hasn't been looked after is an understatement. Think dirty wood without even a hint of stain or any other protective sealant. It could probably do with being replaced but we are hoping a little TLC will give it a few more good years.

I already posted about how we removed the partition on the right section but here's a refresher ...

This


to this


Then we turned our attention to railing on the left section. I have to warn you about this next pic. Its bad, really bad. This is what things looked like before we started doing any work in the back yard. Hideous is an understatement. And those rosebushes were so unruly they would grab onto your clothing as you walked by. They were also rotting, and diseased, and basically a huge mess.
(Side note: the listing for our house boasted 'beautiful, well maintained rosebushes line the back fence' - when we saw the rosebushes we literally laughed out loud.) Anyway, enough about the rosebushes - this is supposed to be about the deck!



Ewwwww!



I know the railing doesn't look that bad but it was so rickety you couldn't even lean on it and the dogs were constantly hitting their heads on the copper pipe as they jumped on and off the deck. The deck is not very high off the ground and doesn't require a railing so we decided to remove it.

The only problem with removing the partition and railing was that these little wood stumps were left sticking up. Josh sawed them off as close to the boards as he could but it was impossible to get them completely flat. They were also a bit of an eyesore.





(Yes, that's a dog pool! Too bad our dogs dont really like it.)

We had the great idea to just pop off the ends, take the affected boards off, saw off the stumps, replace the affected boards with new ones, and then pop the ends back on. Wellllll it wasn't that simple.

Josh worked on it one day this week while I was at work and I came home to this:





Yikes!

The ends pretty much fell apart as Josh was removing them, there were rusty nails everywhere and the support structure came off with the pieces he removed.

That was when we realized we had a 4 day job on our hands! We also realized we needed a lot more wood!

The good news is day 1 went well and we got all the broken pieces replaced. The bad news is we still have a LOT to do in the next 3 days!

Oh and I almost forgot - this is the shade cloth we will be removing and replacing (as viewed from an upstairs window):



Hopefully I'll have progress to share tomorrow!