the deck

Starting at the top left corner and going across:

How Rob started out the morning entertaining us.
Ashley pulling up the old boards.
Dave finishing the job.
(row 2)  Tom and Dave making the deck safer.
The first new piece of wood!
Showing Steph how to screw (yeah, yeah, hilarious).
(row 3)  Steph entertaining Rob.
Ashley nearly decapitating Tom.
Ryan using a power tool.
( row 4)  Me holding a board Rob used to entertain us more.
Rob making the deck all nice and pretty.
Tom and Joel putting the last two pieces in.

After some bargaining, Tom agreed to redo our (read: Ashley's) deck. The parameters were this: 1) I had to buy them beer. I know. Hilarious. But a small price to pay for a nice new deck. 2) Rob had to come. Because he is by far the most entertaining person on our shift. Some of the stuff he does... well look at the first picture there. Rob started the day out by tripping up the stairs and spilling two large coffees plus a large Dr. Pepper all over. It looked like a tiny dark waterfall. 3) They wanted to meet my hot Mormon friends. Boys. Lame. But not a problem, my friends are always up for a BBQ and I wanted to make sure the pro-bono workers finished off their hard day of work with some grubbin' food.

So Friday a ton of wood was dropped off on our driveway. Ashley and I moved some of it to the backyard. I rolled my stupid ankle. Ashley moved some more by herself. In the morning (post ice, elevation and ibuprofen) we were finishing it up when Tom came. Tom has a little construction company on the side so he pulled up with his trailer of tools. It was like a giant toy box. Ashley and I were shown how to pull up the old nails and wood with pry bars and we went at it. That old deck did not stand a chance. Meanwhile the boys were also pulling stuff and cutting the old boards down and getting stuff ready for the rebuild.

For the next phase Ashley and I were not too helpful. The boys... actaully they worked hard. They did manly stuff. I am going to upgrade them from boys to men (for now). The men then reeinforced the beams and made our deck stronger, safer and calmed Ashley's reoccuring deck nightmare. They put alot of work in. They rock. And that was just the beginning...

Next the men started putting on the top of the deck. They started from the far end and worked in. They did the first couple, because walking on those thin tight-rope boards while securing wood and using power tools was a bit precarious (especially with my history of clumsiness). And then they let us help. Dave, Ashley and I stayed up top to secure and screw in the new boards while Tom and Rob finished adding wood to the bottom the prevent the deck from swaying. Yes, our deck used to wobble a bit. Steph was the go-for and Rob's official ladder holder. Ryan joined us and helped up top with the screwing. Go ahead, giggle. You are so immature. But so are we. There was a lot of screwing to be done and an equal number of jokes to go along with the work.

The rebuild took longer than expected, so our friends were arriving to BBQ as we were still trying to finish. I begged Tom to be done and relax, but he wouldn't listen to me (which is not an unusual scenario). My poor friends were hanging out inside, food ready, patiently waiting for them to finish because they felt bad eating while the men were still outside working hard. Luckily the screws we were using required a certain drill bit, which apparently is not manufactured to last long, and the last drill bit finally broke. So the Men were forced to stop. We packed up shop, moved the chairs outside to the new fantastic deck and finally relaxed. The BBQ was great. We made kabobs (I tried two new marinades, one of which is worth sharing: chili-lime marinating them overnight was perfect) and all sorts of delicious sides. The weather was perfect. The food was great. The company was enjoyable. And the new deck was more than we could have asked for.

Thank you Men; you are the BEST.

And if you're wondering why there are no pictures of the finished deck, well, it was almost dark when the men stopped. And also, it is not quite done. Tom and Joel volunteered to come on Tuesday and make us new rails. :) Then I will take finished pictures.