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| 5/15/04 - Got a late start on Saturday. Zach and I had Karate in the
morning, then we went to Home Depot to get some 12' 2x6'ers for the deck
surface. They were calling for thunderstorms all weekend. I got really
lucky. It was beautiful all day Saturday, and as I was finishing up,
it started raining. Sunday- same thing. I had to take a break in the
afternoon to get a haircut, but it was ok because I had to get some more
wood from Home Depot, mostly the wood for the railing. No rain all day
Sunday. Also, Sunday morning, Dave (a friend with a backhoe) showed up
and dug the hill out where the big deck part will go, and made some of
the landscape a little closer to what I want the end result to be, although
that has a long way to go... All in all, a very productive weekend.
I REALLY like this walk around. I thought I'd be content with a half
walk around, but it will be so much easier to vacuum and skim with
the deck all the way around. Maybe next year we'll do the other half. |
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You
always learn as you go, and get very efficient toward the end of a
project. Here's what I learned... I am not a master with the hand circular saw. In fact, I have a difficult time with it. According to the photos in the building plans, they show setting the boards, screwing them down, then chalk-lining, and cutting them. Well, that doesn't work for me. The chalk-lines didn't snap right- they jump, I'm not even sure they snapped where they were supposed to. Here's what it ended up looking like- way off, and I won't risk wasting expensive lumber trying to cut it with the circular saw. SO, what did I do? I set the boards where they were supposed to go, drew a line on the bottom of the boards with a pencil, along the edge. Then I pulled them back up, one by one, and cut them with the miter saw, and set them back in. That worked great. I did the rest of the deck this way. As you can see from the photos, I have to go back and pull the first three sections back up and cut them like the rest. No big deal. |
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| Man, these corners are a pain! All in all, not too bad, but it wasn't easy at first. | Here's what the left side looks like. You can see where I started to cut as I went along starting with the 4th segment. | |
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| This is how far I got by end of day Saturday. I quit a little bit before dusk because it started to lightning, then rain. I have a little more than 1/2 way to go. | Sunday - took most of the day, but I got the
whole thing done (all but cutting down the ones along the left). As I
said before, ya get real efficient by the end of the job. I found the
best way was to cut all the boards, place them down, screw in just the
outer edge, do the next one, etc. When it was all done, I went back,
drilled the counter-sunk holes, then the kids filled the holes with screws,
and I followed them along, drilling them in.
I guess I should put the ladder in now, so the kids can go swimming. They've been very patient while I get this part done. The weather certainly has been good for swimming! This weekend average temp was ~80-85. |
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| The kids were ahead of me, here! | ||
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