Deck Remodel – Saturday (day 18)
We spent the entire day working on the decking and got it finished! J helped most of the morning by pre-cutting off the end of the wood. Later on she was measuring and doing the cuts from start to finish. By noon there was only about 3 rows to go. Unfortunately, I estimated a little too well and we were running out of wood for decking. I had to disassemble my cutting stand to retrieve 3 of the 12″ decking boards. Rats!
The last rows required a lot of notching to go around the posts. That took all afternoon to complete and I wrapped it up around 5 PM right before dinner. It didn’t help that I had to cut the notches with an old toaster!
OK.. well it isn't a toaster, but they sure don't make them like this anymore. Maybe I should update myself with a new one. It sure is noisy!
The notches were easy if there were only one in a board, but when you have two or three in one board, all of a sudden the tolerances start mattering a lot more. The cutting took a long time. I think there might be a better way to cut them but I couldn’t think of a better way to do it and I really don’t like using a skil-saw.
The board from Lowes in the middle sticks out like a sore thumb. I am sure the sun will take care of this in a few weeks.
The worst part of doing the decking is how hard it is on your knees. Most of the time is spent crouched and lining up the boards to get the optimal spacing between planks. I had been using some knee pads but all the wear and tear actually squished the padding down to nothing and they weren’t really helping.
You can see J in the background getting ready for dinner - I better get inside!
All done.. the kids are pretty excited about the decking being done but they want the rail installed…
Whew!