New Deck

Thirty days ago my deck looked like this (although not quite this nice).

I've only been in my house for 8 years and the deck was literally rotting. Violet couldn't even go outside and play on the deck without getting splinters in her feet. So I decided to replace the old redwood deck with new composite materials. I was going to hire a contractor but Jamie decided he wanted to take on the challenge.

Day 1 was exhausting. Jamie, Michael, Ashley and I started demolishing the old deck.

A lot of sawdust and a lot of wood.

And before half the day was finished, the old deck was gone. Only the main structure outline was left. Notice poor Ashley in the back of this picture.

She had the hardest job of hauling all the pieces of wood and putting them in the trailer. But I was right beside her. We finally got smart and got Mom's old wagon out. I was on a break when Michael told me Ashley had to reload one load twice. The wagon fell over!

No wonder she had to take a break. We started May 13 and the weather had been rather cool. This was one of the hottest days in May.

This is how the deck looked after the second day. Instead of replacing the screen porch, I decided to put siding on the east side and leave the entire deck open.

After day 3, the HOA decided to stick their nose in my business and sent me a scathing e-mail telling me to stop construction until I told them exactly what I was doing. Their concern was that I wasn't putting back exactly what I tore down. Come on people, times change and so does design.

In the end I won (like I was going to stop) and we continued with construction. The deck is a composite grey material with a black ornamental railing.

 Very neat and clean. And my deck is huge.

I can't thank Jamie, Michael, Ashley and Adam (a friend of Jamie's) enough for all their hard effort into replacing my deck.

It was a hard fight but now I have the best looking deck in the neighborhood and it doesn't look like it was built in the 80's. Happy Mother's Day to me!