New Addition !

There has been a change in plans !

We're adding on to the deck.
What did you think I meant?

Rainy days and Sundays

We were not going to let the lack of cooperation from the weather interfere with our projects ! We dodged the rain drops on Saturday and accomplished a great deal of work. The existing steps were built three feet off center (?) and needed to be centered on the deck for our arbor plan. As the base was still in good shape we opted to keep them intact and just move them down.

The extraction process went easier than I thought it would, that is until we started breaking up a part of the concrete slab they were sitting on. I scored a line and was hoping to break off the three foot section in one piece and reuse it on the other side. Captain Rebarb foiled that plan. Although it was only two rods, they were half inch thick ! There was no way we could reuse any of it. The rods were ground off and the steady rain put an end to the day.

Sunday came, the birds were singing and the sun was shining and we were coming up with plan B. We trenched out the new area that would provide a base for the steps, used the crushed stone that was left from our sidewalk demolishion, two bags of sand that were laying around and the concrete blocks that were removed from around the deck. The steps were back up in no time and we were off to Home Depot to order wood for the deck and pick up more project supply's.Next will come staining and cutting all the new decking.






Anybody need some old treated lumber ? ? ?

At last ! The weather finally cooperated and we were able to go full guns on the yard.
Greg started removing the rest of the stone around the deck while Karla was on poop patrol.
We took a break early in the day and went on a filed trip to Wallace Landscaping and Stone.

There we found the flag stone we liked for the sidewalk replacement and pathways around the yard. We also found stone and rock for the pond but are considering raiding new construction in the area for river rock and boulders.

Back home, lunch and it was back to work. Karla trimmed the trees and dug up a monster bush on the side of the house. Greg took the deck apart.
The deck turned out to be more of a project than we had planed. The 4X4 posts on the side gave us trouble as there was no room to work both under the deck and in between the decking.
The posts were cracked off, the wood chipped away and the some of the bolts ground off in order to free the 4X4's. The fronts went a lot faster but the demolition still went on into the night.