All hands on deck!

Home projects. Two weeks ago my wife and I decided to go ahead with the planned addition of a raised deck on our house. We have been without a deck since 2004 when we tore down the old one to make room for the sunroom we built. As an interim I put a few pavers down so the grill wouldn't sink into the mud during the rains. Now, we are back at building.

I want to make it clear when I say "we are building" I really mean that. We didn't hire anyone to put the four-season sunroom on and we aren't hiring out the addition of the deck work either. All this means a lot of back-breaking work. From digging the five-foot deep post holes for the concrete pillars, mixing and pouring the concrete, to lugging the twelve-foot long 2 by 10 treated beams. Along with all this work comes the various scapes and bruises common to such labor.

So this deck is nearly complete. I can now walk on about 1/3 of it. Today I will continue the tedious process of laying the floor boards across the joists. We decided to use a hardwood called Ipe (pronounced "ee-pay") with hiddent screws. Ipe has a hardness rating of 3,600 lbs compared to treated lumber's 690 lbs. What this translates to for me is that everything is harder to do. Cutting takes longer, drilling takes longer (and wears out the blades and bits faster too). The hidden fasteners (Ipeclip) work well but using them means preparing the board with a bisquit cutter before laying the board down. In other words, it will look great but it takes a long time to get there!

Someone asked me why we don't pay someone to do this. My first response is "because we have three kids in college!" But in reality part of it is the satifaction of doing it ourselves. Yes, I ache from the work (but I am also losing a little weight and toning up). Yes, it takes longer to get it done (but I am my own boss and can make adjustments to the process as we go, like where I have to put the downspouts from the roof). I guess the real answer is that when it is done, we will have done it ourselves (or in the case of the deck, I will have done it since I worked on this one alone).