Repairing the Back Deck, Day 1

A big next few days for us in Georgia. Kirt drove down to stay with us a few days, I took off work to have a long weekend… and we’re all going to be repairing/replacing the boards on the back deck.

When we arrived, we saw that there were several spots where the wood had rotted through. And while a majority of the back deck was fine, a few spots were… fine if you avoided them. But were really in need of repair.

Day one for us involved getting all the material. And if we got lucky, a slight bit of time to install.

Driving to Home Depot, I spotted this combination Chiropractor/Auto Accidents storefront. I guess if things pair well, why not advertise it?

In Kirt’s hurry to head down, he left a lot of his work clothes at home. So we stopped in to a nearby Salvation Army to pick up some work shirts.

I was pretty surprised to see the color coding in action.

Browsing around, I found some… interesting options.

A little unclear who would want this shirt.

I don’t even know where to start with this.

This one, I actually debated purchasing (but it didn’t quite fit).

Another for the “I”m not sure who this is for” category.

I love this t-shirt, but where were you in 2011?

If nothing else, this t-shirt is incredibly specific.

An unexpected find/reference to 12stone.

Oh all you old twelvestone weirdos, how I miss you all.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

At Home Depot, going through boards.

We ended up needing a lot more than what was available (Kirt and went through a lot of boards, and discarded plenty). Ended up getting a guy with the forklift, to bring down a few fresh bundles.

All of our various boards – a lot of 16-footers.

We realized that all the lumber we got wouldn’t fit in Kirt’s truck. So we had to set our wood aside in an aisle, and headed over to a nearby U-Haul to rent a truck. And then loaded things up.

Backing things up on a slight incline, so we can walk the lumber to the backyard. This was a lot of heavy back and forth.

While Kirt and I were unloading the truck, Liz was busy in the front yard putting down mulch. Which in Georgia, apparently, is a different material – made out of pine, I think?

One of the areas that prompted the decision to repair/replace.

Got a few rows removed. The actual demo/removal process was easier than I expected. We had some trouble removing the boards that were notched/tucked into the balusters… but we used a multitool with a custom blade to cut through the nails.

One nice bonus: when the deck was installed, the notches were cut into the balusters themselves. So we removed a whole plank, and all we needed to do was put a fresh plank back in.

Progress by the end of the day. For the most part, today was all about materials and transport. But happy to have gotten just a slight start. Going to hit it officially, tomorrow.

Related:
Deck Board Install, Continued: Racing the Rain
Deck Board Install
TwelveStone Chicago Boozification, Part 1