Finished Product

This morning we woke to pouring rain.  We still had a few things to do, but about noon it started to clear and we were able to get started with the final few things that needed to be done.  I got a birthday present last night, it was an electric circular saw.  The  battery ones were just not quite powerful enough to get through the heavy wet pressure treated wood.  Anyway, we got the rail on the set of stairs on this side of the deck.  That was the final thing to do.  If you look closely, you can see Jeffrey and Chris sitting on the deck.  Chris is waving and so happy that we are all done. 

 Not sure what Jeffrey is up to in this picture, but I think he is admiring the great work that Chris and I did this week!

 This is the set of stairs that we built this morning.  Last night we laid out the 2 x 10s and drew the lines for cutting the risers, so as soon as the rain quit and the sun shone, we got busy with the new saw and got them cut and they fit perfectly.  So that was my sister's and my vacation.

Friday's Progress

 The deck is completed.  Today we put the rail all around the deck except at the pool side.  It was a real task cutting all of the posts.  Once they were done, everything else went rather rapidly.  This is the view from the  back door.

 This is the view from the back of the house toward the pool and the driveway side of the deck.

 

 This is the view from the ground looking up the stairs showing the rail a little closer.

 This is the end view showing the whole depth of the deck

 Looking from the other side of the deck.  The stairs on this side is the only thing left to do along with railing for both sets of stairs.

Chris posing on the deck.  We are so proud of this major accomplishment.

Thursday's Work

We were very concerned this morning about the weather, but the rain only came down for about 2 minutes and it wasn't very bad.  The sun came out about 3 o'clock.

 

 We had a good day of working today.  We got the section toward the pool all framed in on the pool side and then got extra support all in place.  While Chris was working on the tough cuts, I got all of the screws in on the 8 x 12 section we decked yesterday.

This is to show you the edge along the side of the pool. If you are really wondering we are raising a special breed of "black mollies" in the pool. 

 This is looking back the other way.

 By supper time, we had all of the deck boards cut and in place and screwed down. Looking pretty awesome.

 Jordan came home not feeling the best, so he wasn't out with us while we were working.  He came out as we were finishing up cleaning up.

 

More of the Project

The first six pictures were taken first thing this morning.

 

 Jeffrey brought his pressure washer over and we cleaned the old part of the deck.  It had some moss growing on it and when it got wet it was very slippery.  Jeffrey knew that from experience.  If you look at the next picture, the steps didn't get cleaned yet and so you can see what the deck would have looked like and the difference the pressure washer made.

 This the framing for the deck boards that we actually got finished last night but didn't get in our pictures because it got too dark to take pictures.  This area is 8' x12', the same size as the old deck.

 This is just some of the color in our backyard. 

 I took these pictures at the end of our day today.  We got the framing for the extension toward the pool all done.  It is all supported and framed together all but the facing boards at the pool side.  We will finish those in the morning.

 All of the deck boards are tacked down on this section but the last one, we have to cut that and we were just running out of steam about 5:15 pm.  We called it a day. 

 Looking back toward the house.  The saw is covered up in case of rain, which we didn't get today like they thought we would and we are very glad. The picture below is just from a different angle. Tomorrow we hope to finish the deck boards and then we have a set of stairs to build and put the rail around the top.  This deck has gone much smoother than the last one we built.  



The Vacation Project

 This is a picture of the deck on the back of our house, it measures 8' x 12'.  It had a rail around it and a set of stairs coming down this side.  We are enlarging the deck to reach out to our small swimming pool and also coming toward you in this picture another 8'. We started on Monday with our measuring and then ordering the supplies and they were delivered Monday afternoon.  The middle supports were not under the original deck.  We got those put in on Monday afternoon.   This deck has been in place for about nine years. It had sagged and settled and was an awful thing to level and straighten. We finished all of that by noon on Tuesday. We had torn the stairs off, so we had to get up and down off of the deck using the step ladder shown in the foreground. Jordan just loved going up and down the ladder.

 Our oil tank was originally set on old railroad ties.  Over the last ten years they had started to rot and were in real bad shape.  Monday the first job we got done was to jack up the tank, take the ties out, and put in some solid blocks.  That was a real job in itself, but we got everything in and taken care of so that should be good for another ten years.

 Tuesday we had to jack up the old deck, cut off some of the supports so that the end away from the house would be level with the rest of the deck.  There was a lot of crawling around underneath that deck the last two days.  We finally got it pretty close to level all the way around. 

 After the leveling process was done, then we put the old stairs (that fit perfectly) on the other side of the deck with blocks underneath the end. That made it a lot easier getting up and down off of the deck. 

 Here you can see the start of the framework that will support the addition to the east end of the deck.  We got the brackets attached and then we leveled the frame and got it all anchored and braced so that we can proceed with the 2 x 6 joists on top.  The picture below shows the new blocks in place under the supports that we had to cut off.  Keep watching for more updates, we did more work after I took these pictures.



This is the start of some of the pictures and hopefully a video from Rachel's piano recital back in June.  I am just running a little behind.

Spring Vacation

Rachel and I just returned from a vacation to California to see Justin and Stacy. We had a wonderful Easter and week after with them. Had a lot of fun and saw a lot of new sights. Thanks again kids for a wonderful time. Here are the links to my different web albums of our trip.https://picasaweb.google.com/111472392053516289027/SacramentoOldSac#, https://picasaweb.google.com/111472392053516289027/NapaValleyAndPointReyesNationalSeashore##, https://picasaweb.google.com/111472392053516289027/SanFranciscoTrip##. There are three different web albums here about three different things that we did. We also did things that I didn't post the pictures of on here but these are the real highlights of our trip. Most of them are captioned but a few still need captions. I will try within the next few days to get them done. Enjoy the glimpses into our lives!

Diet Sunday Dinner

Here are the steaks, hot off the grill. I hadn't tried to grill this winter with my new grill because I have never been able to grill in the winter with a grill because it is too cold here in the winter. It was mild on Thursday, so I tried cooking burgers on the grill and that worked fine, so Rachel suggested that we try the steaks on the grill today. I first had to shovel the pile of snow off of the back deck and clean the snow off of the grill before I could even light it. Got it heated up to 400 degrees and cooked them 10 minutes on one side and about 8 on the other side. Just right is the way to describe them.
Added the rest of the wonderful things to go with it and it was an awesome meal. Sauteed the onions with a little butter and a little olive oil, and then added a can of mushrooms and a can of french onion soup, then cooked off the extra moisture and they were delicious.

Savored every bit of it.

Ice Storm

These are the branches of the tree in front of our house. There is approximately 1/4 inch of ice on everything. The light is reflecting through the ice and I just thought it would make an interesting picture.
You can see the ice build up here on the shepherd's crook plant hanger on the porch also.

You can see the icicles hanging on the porch light at the end of the porch. Everything was encased in this ice. Sort of reminiscent of the Ice Storm of '98.

And this is a duplicate picture that I can't seem to delete.

Good- bye Intrepid

Our dear faithful Chrysler Intrepid is finally going to take its final trip out of the yard in the next couple of days. (It would have been gone today, except we had an ice storm) A man stopped and inquired about what we were going to do with the two cars in the yard, I explained that one belonged to my son, but that we wanted to sell them. He wanted the Intrepid for parts, made an offer and we took it. We bought it with 19,000 miles on it and in now has 189,000 miles on it. It has been a very good car for us, it survived two teenage drivers, one deer, one ditch, and one stop sign. Good-bye Intrepid, you have been a good and faithful friend!