My father-in-law and I are a far cry from Al Borland and Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor. As I have stated before, he is brilliant when it comes to home improvement projects. Any time we have run into a snag, he’s always been able to find the right solution.
A few days ago, I posted about the deck project. If you missed it, you can read that post here:
He came over Saturday afternoon and we got the remaining two posts up. Afterward, we had to trek off to Menards to get the rest of the deck boards. They still have our street tore up and Sam wasn’t sure he’d be able to get his trailer down the road, so he didn’t bring it with him. Instead, we took his truck to get our supplies.
He is always thinking ahead. Knowing that the deck boards were 12 feet long, he packed a battery operated circular saw. Once we got all the boards, we found a spot in the back of the parking lot and began cutting them in half so we could put them in the back of the truck.
Once we got back home, we began to lay the deck boards. For some reason, some of the tongues were not fitting into the grooves. They should just fit together like a puzzle piece.
We needed 45 deck boards. We went through and picked the best looking ones out of the ones they had there. Some were a little darker than the others, some seemed a little thinner than the others, but they are all the same part number.
When we start laying them in, some really had to be forced together. We were tapping them in with a 2×4 and a sledge hammer in order to get them to snap together. Some of the boards may have been bowed a bit, too. It was a lot more challenging than we expected. We did make headway, though.
We’re about half way there.
My father-in-law plans to put the remaining ones on and then trim the ends. He says it will be easy, and I trust him. He is having some surgery this week which will slow him down. He was talking about coming over this weekend to finish, but I told him there was no hurry. Sam and I were more worried about getting the support posts up. There are still boards leading to the door, so we can wait a little while.
I may attempt to lay a couple down, but I’m not sure I want to try without him there. I’m so grateful for his help on this!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 
what a great bonding experience and great for the house, too!
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I remember when I replaced my porch flooring, the issue with the tongue and groove of one board not matching the one you’re trying to put next to it was the big headache. I bought, I think half again as many boards as I needed and returned the ones that were unusable–so they could sell them again, most likely, and maybe for the fourth or fifth time.
I was whining about this to a professional carpenter, and his response was a knowing nod. He said if all lumber was cut perfectly, anyone could be a carpenter; the trick was to make a house out of all these imperfect boards.
What you’ve done so far looks great!
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I’m really loving how it looks. I’ll mess around a bit with the boards and if I have to, I’ll revisit the store and get some to replace bad ones
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Looks as if it will look really good when it’s done. That was mighty mighty smart of him to carry along the saw. There’s few things I hate more on the roads than pickups piled high with boards or pipes that stick way out behind them. I always figure they’re goinna fly off at the car behind them.
Wasn’t Tool Time Tim in Michigan too?
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Looks great and a wonderful opportunity to spend time with your father-in-law. I sure do miss mine he was a great man.
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Never got a chance to meet my FIL, he passed away four or five years before I even met my sweetie. Would have liked to – he was apparently ‘a character’, a truck driver into his 60s – we might have bonded over baseball, he was a big fan . Likewise my better half never met my Dad, which we regret though she did get to talk to him several times on the phone.
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