Here’s the deck as of this morning.
We won’t be working on the house over labor day weekend but hopefully the other weekends in September we can get the siding up (window panels and siding) and the deck a little more completed. The deck doesn’t have to be finished before winter because next year we’ll redo more of it (all the way around) but it would be nice to get the wood we bought laid and protected for winter.
Now it’s back to work for 4 days!
It was a little hotter outside today and it was the last day of our vacation so we took it a little easy. After a quick trip to home depot and some breakfast/lunch at Denny’s we decided to start on the copper.
First we cut the large piece we bought in half so it could do both triangles. That’s an expensive piece of copper!
Then we had to install the small side piece so we cut that from our 6″ wide strip and bent that and put it in. Finally came the slow process of bending, measuring, bending, cutting, bending the large triangle piece. But finally – it’s in!
The other corner at this point just has ice shield, we did pull the aluminum siding off near the corner and put in the small side piece (not pictured) but we didn’t get to the corner today.
At this point we took a break so Ryan could change his oil – we’ve got to stay on top of the chores even on vacation.
Unfortunately I don’t have more pictures from the rest of the day because I worked on the deck until dark but I sanded the deck down (light sanding) and got the stain on it. The deck isn’t finished but the part that is, is now protected. We’re using HC-65 (Hodley Red) for the stain which is the accent color we plan to use on the house. It may not match exactly since we went with a semi-transparent stain but it should at least match the rest of the house. I’ll try to get a picture in the morning before I head to work.
Time to clean up and relax the rest of the night and it’s back to work tomorrow 🙁
Well this weekend is the end of our vacation – which is sad because it really went too quickly as usual. We had a great day though, we started out with some errands (last trip to the dump for a while hopefully) and then to the lumber yard to buy more decking now that we knew about how much we needed.
Then home to start working on laying the deck some more. While Ryan worked on that I got the “to be flashed” section under the diningroom windows scraped/sanded/primed.
Then I helped ryan with the deck and we figured out what to do with the corner – it was really rotted from the carpenter ant damage so we decided to jack up our new block after we got that in and cut out the rotted wood and replace it with a piece of pressure treated wood.
Then we continued on with the decking until it was getting kind of late and we switched over to our copper project (although we didn’t leave enough time). We got the ice shield on all around and then started with the front piece of copper which is cut from a 6″ wide strip we bought. This was our first time bending copper ourselves and it went pretty well.
The hard part comes tomorrow when we do those large triangles but since we did the ice shield already we have an idea how it will go to cover. We bought a 3′ wide sheet for those, hopefully it’s long enough.
We got a good start on the deck today. First we had to jack up the roof of the porch so we could get the decking out from under the corner post and put in our new block.
Because the corner block hangs off so far and we plan to put a staircase off the back at some point we then put in a new support.
And after a long day of putting down the deck (it’s 3 1/2″ Fir Decking) we got this far:
We have to put in a few more supports under the new boards, the supports are too far apart and the boards crack a bit. So tomorrow we’ll hit the dump to empty the truck out and swing by home depot and then the lumber yard to get more decking (3 pieces left).
We’d like to get started on the copper flashing by the diningroom windows tomorrow since that was the plan for our vacation. So hopefully we can get an early start tomorrow – lots to do!
While I was gone tonight Ryan was very busy! We now have a door knob on both sides of the bathroom door! This was no easy feat – a larger lockset needed to be installed which meant mortising out a spot for that larger lockset.
It’s not completed – we need to patch up the old holes and repaint but the door knob works! And there’s room to grab it on the outside!
This was a huge surprise and with a few touchups to paint the bathroom will soon be crossed off the list completely!
And tomorrow it’s back to the porch!
Today was a short day because Ryan had a dentist appt in the evening and I had a stitch with friends. But we decided to tackle the ant damage on the porch today. First we put in some extra supports.
Then we cut away the rotted wood (most of it). We also sprayed for ants some more.
Then we put in a new piece of wood.
I also got some blocks prepared to put under the posts tomorrow when we start putting this all back together.
So far we’ve gone as far around the porch as we plan to go just yet. We’ll start working on the posts and putting on the new decking tomorrow and see how that goes. We still have work to do to fix the rest of the front but that might be a later project.
And tomorrow’s a new day!
It’s like all the rain that didn’t come this summer waited to come today – it rained buckets! Of course I couldn’t sit still and do nothing so we decided to do some basement projects.
First We moved all of the poplar wood to Ryan’s shelves which opened up the center floor of the basement finally!! That alone made my vacation worth it, then we put in an outlet for the freezer so now I can finally go to BJs and stock up our freezer!
My patch panel is still in progress but since it’s my other basement project ongoing i took a picture anyway.
Taking another short break, we might work on stripping some more window trim for the tv room if my hands are up to it (they’re a little sore).
Well we had a short reprieve from rain today so Ryan and I got started on our porch project, replacing the supports under the porch so we can raise it up a little (it was really tilted on one side). It did rain a bit but it was a light rain.
By lunch we had braved the jacking up/replacing supports and gotten the back corner and side done – it was nerve racking! We also put in some reinforcements along the way.
After lunch (and another trip to home depot) we moved onto the front corner – this was pretty nerve racking because there was some pretty extensive carpenter ant damage in the corner, so we put a few more supports in than what was there originally. The side is still not level but it’s much better than before.
As we moved on to the front of the porch, we didn’t plan to raise it up much in the front, just replace any supports that needed it. However as we removed the wood we found TONS of carpenter ant damage – the wood is just rotting away.
Here are some pictures of the damage:
Now we have a little more work than originally planned. First off we bought some ant/termite killer and sprayed the porch down. Then we’ll have to replace the completely rotted wood and reinforce a lot more of the porch than we planned. Unfortunately it’s raining again right now and supposed to rain again tomorrow.
So while we hoped to be done with the reinforcements today and on to putting in the new decking we bought – we now have another day to spend working on the underside of the porch. Maybe by Friday we can start putting the decking on 🙁
It’s going to be a long week if we also want to get to working on the siding/window panels! We got the wood to get started on them but now we just need the time. I guess we needed 2 weeks off instead of just 1!
Today marks year 2 being married, and how did we celebrate? Well we worked on the house just like last year! This year however we’re on the other side of the house.
We took a good load of aluminum siding over to the recycle place finally, we didn’t get a ton for it but we had 200lbs that we got rid of from our basement at least. We still have more (plus what’s actually on the house still).
Then we went over to the lumber yard and bought some wood for doing the siding/window panels as well as some new decking that will match the old. Although we’re playing with the idea of replacing the whole deck eventually.
Finally back home to start working on the porch. With all the rain the side of the house is too wet to start working on siding, we’ll probably put that off until thursday when it’s supposed to get sunny and hopefully all dried out.
This porch project is a bit more than we had planned for. We knew we needed to jack up the porch a bit and replace the supports which are sagging on the outside of the porch. This is what we uncovered:
The corner post is hollow and resting on the deck boards. So now we need to support the porch roof while we get the deck boards out of there and put in new wood. It’s never easy! Some of these supports are not looking great either so we may reinforce them a bit as we go along. We bought new cement blocks (that’s what’s supporting the porch) so we can put in a few more supports where it’s sagging.
Going to be a LONG hard project – ugg! But it’s raining again so we’re going to call it a day and get a nice dinner for our anniversary and play some Starcraft with PJ hopefully later!
Well looks like the start of our vacation is going to be a bit rainy – not great for working on the siding for the house!
I did get the front door (sidelight and frame) sanded and stained yesterday. I’ll do a coat of urethane a day and it should be done quite soon and all protected.
When ryan got home we relaxed and watched Emma since both of us got less sleep than normal the night before.
Of course it’s raining again today but we’re going to go try to recycle our aluminum siding finally!