“It Should Be a Quick Job”

My father-in-law asked me if I would be available Sunday to help him swap a few deck boards at his place. “It should be a quick job. We’re only replacing a few bad ones,” he said. Well, it indeed started off with “a few bad” boards…

On the porch itself, we put in three new boards. On the ramp, we used 4 long boards to replace 7 boards. As you can see from the above photo, the thought eventually was to just go ahead and replace all the ramp boards. And we did.

It actually came out pretty good and only took about half the day. Then at some point, the decision was made to do the whole porch.

In the above photo, you can see the three boards we replaced. Once we knew we were doing the whole porch, we had to rip out the rest of the boards. It was a job! My father-in-law and brother-in-law ran up to Home Depot to get more boards and more screws while I ripped out the deck boards.

When they returned, they helped me with the remaining boards. We worked pretty much up until dinner time and we called it a day. We still had half the porch to finish which meant we were back at it on Monday afternoon. I stayed until about 6pm, and left because I needed to get the kids home, bathed and in bed for school the next day. They were almost finished when I left.

Tuesday morning, I had to stop over there after dropping Ella off at school. My wife bought something from a fundraiser and I had to bring over the money for it. When I walked up the ramp I saw that they had all but the very end board done. They didn’t finish it because my father-in-law was going to put in a different size board to avoid cutting the size they were using.

It looked fantastic. I can tell you, though, Sunday night I was sore. Monday night, I was stiff and sore. My hips were on fire, probably because we were hoping over deck boarding all day. My knees were killing me too because we were on them the entire time we were screwing in deck boards.

I’m always glad to help out my father-in-law. Lord knows how many times he has helped me! I’m happy it is done and that my mother-in-law is happy with the way it looks.

Now……pass the ibuprofen, please….

I Did It Myself!

If you have followed this blog, you know that the majority of the home projects I do are done with my father-in-law. He is always there to help me with things and I am so grateful for him.

Recently, you may recall, we got a second hand playscape. We knew it would probably need a bit of patch work. The other day, when Ella was climbing the rock wall, one of the rocks just fell off.

Most of the wood on it was starting to dry rot. So I went into my garage and took a look at the wood I had left from the deck/porch project. I had plenty of boards and a couple 2×4’s. That was really all I needed. I knew that Menard’s had the little “rocks” that were mounted to the boards, so I could pick those up after I put the new wall together.

It didn’t take long to measure everything out. The speed square I bought got a lot of use that day. Once the wall was finished, I packed the kids in the car and drove to Menard’s. The problem was, that they were out of the “rocks.”

I began to wonder how I could get around this problem. We looked at some of the other “swing set/playscape” accessories and there it was. It was a big plastic thing with holes in it. Basically, you build a square frame and mount this inside the frame. I, of course, thought “Why can’t I mount this thing right onto the wall I built?”

I ran to the tape measure aisle. Measured the plastic piece and saw that it would fit! So 8-12 screws later – it was mounted and guess what? The kids love it!!

An entire project finished without having to call my father-in-law for help!! Woo hoo!!

All It Needs Now is a Coat of Paint

Once again, I am forever grateful for the handyman skills of my father-in-law. Whenever there is some sort of project that Sam (or I) want to do, he is able to see the finished product in his head. Nothing is impossible and even though there always seems to be a hiccup or two, the project always turns out fantastic.

Recently, we decided to lay down new deck boards on our side porch. We also put up new columns, as the old ones were dry rotted. It’s been a project, but the hard part is finally complete. I know I have shared some of the before pictures….

The missing post in the above picture is what led to the rest.

Then we had issues with the boards. Ours had no groove in the middle, so we had to make adjustments.

New posts went up first and some of the deck board, but there was much more to do.

The above is where we left off a week or so ago. These boards, while not in the best shape, were going to take some work to get up. Despite having some minor surgery earlier in the week, and me telling him we could wait another week, my father-in-law said he was coming over Sunday to work on the porch.

So, on Sunday morning, I brought out all of the tools we needed for the day. I had the air compressor, nail gun, impact drill, hammers, pry bars, table saws, jigsaws, miter saws, and another bag of various tools ready to go. He was there at 10am sharp and we got right to work.

The first thing we did was start laying boards where we left off. We worked right up to where the post was and then ripped the rest of the old boards out. Around the posts we had to cut notches so the boards would fit. We did some creative cuts when we got to the end and against the house. Then we had to go to the other end and finish a couple boards there.

Once the deck boards all down and in place, my father in law took some excess wood and made some decorative boots for around the tops and bottoms of the posts. I learned that my table saw can be adjusted to cut at a 45 degree angle! Who knew!?

I thought the boots looked very cool on the posts.

All I need to do now is paint the posts and figure out whether or not to stain or paint the deck boards. The finished product…

It was a long day. I spent a lot of time bending over and on my knees. My back and knees are a bit sore today. It was worth it … and the countless ibuprofen pills I have been popping all day!

Thanks again for your help, Dad!

It’s Coming Along

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:

Hit the Deck!

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!

Hit the Deck!

So, my father-in-law and I are working on yet another project. This one, however, was not a planned project. And as per usual, once we started it, we found that we’ll be doing more than expected.

This time it is our side porch. Forgive the photo, but the only one I could find was one I took once the Christmas lights were up.

The above picture will serve as a “Before” picture, as I didn’t really take one.

So here is what happened. Sam and I have been discussing getting rid of the railing and just keeping the posts for some time. One day she was sitting on her bench rocker and I leaned over the railing and it broke away from the post. That wasn’t such a big deal because the railing was going away.

However, when the second post from the left in the above picture broke away from the porch itself, we knew we had a problem. It seems that the bottom of the post and the deck boards were dry rotting. With that little incident, I called my father-in-law.

We began to look at each of the posts and saw that some of the others had done the same thing. One of them, in all honesty, we can’t even believe that the roof hadn’t come down! We decided that were were going to do some wider posts and just fix the bad boards. But, as I have stated, nothing ever goes that smoothly for us.

Once we got rid of the railings, we went to work on the posts. The bad news was that they only had a few of the decking boards we needed. That was when my father-in-law suggested that we could probably get away with just replacing the bad boards and stain/paint the deck. We ripped out the bad boards and laid the new boards and ran into another issue.

The old boards are double boards (in the orange square). They have a groove down the middle (green arrow). The only deck boards we could get were single boards (in the blue square) and when you put them together, there is no groove. This led to about a one inch gap (circled in yellow). So it became obvious that we now will end up ripping up all of the old deck board and replace with new ones – at about 15 bucks a board!

With daylight fading, we were able to lay down the remaining deck board and we got up three of the five posts.

In all honesty, despite the work and cost involved, I think the deck is going to look really good. My father-in-law and I were talking and I can see a grey paint or dark stain for the deck itself and white paint for the posts. I am excited to see how this all turns out. I’ve got my fingers crossed that we run into no more issues ….

I’m hoping this is the last big project for quite awhile!

Front Porch Fixin’

I am not a handyman. I’m sure that I have mentioned this fact many times. So when my wife came to me and said she was worried about the front porch, we both knew who to call.

Our front porch has felt “soft” for some time. Sam (and I) were worried that our mail carrier would take a step on it and fall through! My father-in-law has helped us on numerous projects. Sam called him and he came over to assess the situation.

The one thing we were not clear on is whether or not there was anything below the deck boards. As we stood there wondering, it was decided that the fix it project would take place the following day. So, without thinking about it anymore, he grabbed a hammer and started to pull out the deck boards.

We were relieved to see that there was a cement porch under the boards. At least we knew our mail carrier was gonna be ok! The boards were literally falling apart as we pulled them.

My father-in-law took some measurements and began to do some figuring. He guessed that we’d need about 10-12 deck boards and we’d be able to get the job done in about 4-5 hours. So Monday night, Sam and I headed to Lowes and grabbed the boards, deck screws, and a few things for pumpkins for the kids.

Tuesday morning, we took the railings off, ripped up the old boards and began measure for the new ones. I’m always in awe of the little things my father-in-law does that I would never think of. For example, the first thing he did was measure and mark the center. I am sure I wouldn’t have done that. He knew exactly where the first boards were going to go and how we were going to attack the rest of the project.

As we were cutting and setting boards, my father-in-law said, “I’m not sure we got enough boards.” This freaked me out. He is always right on with measurements. He reminded me that we had measured thinking we were going to lay boards a certain way, but we opted to lay them a little different.

Thankfully, the main walkway area of the porch were all full length boards. For the outer parts, we were able to take the boards we had and stagger them a bit. Once we butted the pieces together, you really can’t even tell. Plus, Sam and I will eventually paint the porch and those seams will be even harder to see. So it all worked out and the only extra money we had to spend was on a few bolts for the railings which needed to be a tad longer.

If you look close at the outer boards, you can see where we butted boards together. I think it looks great! I was actually pretty impressed with just how much better it looks. It also was a fairly quick job once we started. Instead of 4-5 hours, we were finished in just under 3 hours.

If I didn’t have my father-in-law’s help, I am sure that the porch would be uneven, cracked, and a disaster that looked like I hired these guys:

Instead, it looks amazing! As I stood on it yesterday, I was impressed at just how study it felt. I’m sure the mail carrier will feel a lot safer, too!

Thanks, Dad!