What better way to spend your weekend than to tear up your deck? My body aches.
The ‘before’ shot of the deck.
It’s become apparent that I need to replace my deck. I don’t know much about them, but after replacing a few boards here and there over the years, I’ve noticed the old girl is starting to show her age so maybe it was time to investigate. I put a screwdriver into the joists and sometimes the screwdriver would enter the wood completely. I’m assuming that’s not a good sign!
I have to say, rebuilding a deck is not an easy task if you are thinking of redesigning it at the same time. We have to keep things like ‘not wanting to block the bathroom window’ and ‘where is the septic tank’ in mind when redesigning. We also want to solve some of the issues that are apparent from the last deck…perhaps raise it a few inches off the ground so it doesn’t rot?
I begged Vero to take this shot so I can show everyone I was hard at work.
Taking apart the deck wasn’t overly hard once I got a system in place. With crowbar in hand, I would pop a board off and then take the nails out and then throw the board over near the fire pit. Hey, quick question for people out there….can I burn cedar wood that has been stained? Note: this stuff is not pressure treated wood. Some boards were interesting as you would press down on them with the crowbar and water would come out of the wood.
While putting boards down with screws is probably an awesome idea, taking them out proved to be harder than the ones with nails in them. On Saturday I was taking as many screws as I could out before popping the board, but then I realized it was just easier to pop the board off, and them hammer the ends of the screw off instead of trying to get it out of the wood completely.
The finished product.
With any renovation comes an unexpected surprise. I’ll have to fill this in with plastic cement before starting anything else.