De-construction....

So we had some sunny weather last week and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to be outside. Luckily there was work to be done. I have been wanting to pull down our lower back deck for over a year now and Darren kept telling me to wait because we weren't ready to start doing hard-scaping. Well recently the railing started falling off of their own accord and since the deck was several feet off the ground on one side it became a hazard (Devon loved to stand on it and throw the dogs balls.) So on Wednesday afternoon I went out with Darren's reciprocating saw and started to take down the railings (much to Sadie's dismay - she loved that deck). I spent about an hour and a half getting all the railings off. That left an extremely unsafe structure but I knew I could finish it off the next day. Sadie took the extra time to get in as much lounging as possible

The the next day I went out to start cutting the deck itself apart. This is when I discovered that some knowledge of how to build a deck would be useful when cutting it down. I had talked with Darren and knew that I needed to start at the back (high point off the ground) and work toward the house (that way I didn't get stuck on it and it stayed stable). Well I went to work but was having trouble getting started I got a little saw happy and before I realized it I had cut through all the supports on the back half of the deck. At this point I almost gave up. I even went inside and told Darren I was going to stop for the day because I thought it was unstable now. After thinking about it for a while I realized it wasn't quite as unstable as I had thought and I could still get it down with out killing myself if I was very careful. So I went back out and started cutting again. This apparently made Darren a bit nervous because he came out about 10 minutes after me. At this point I was still plotting my next cut so I showed Darren what I had done and what my next plan was. He agreed and then started cutting away. (So even though the pictures don't show it Darren actually cut the platform apart. It only took him about 15 mintues, he is much more comfortable with the power tools then I am.)

Now that it was down then came the part of lugging everything up our side yard and getting it to the dump. The smaller pieces & railings weren't bad, I was able to move them all up on my own. But the larger pieces had to be cut up and several of them took both Darren and I to carry. We ended up renting a 10' U-haul truck and loading it up to take everything to the dump on Friday. Saturday morning we drove out to the dump and then returned the truck and now we have a lovely dirt hill to look at as we start planning the next step for the new deck. It was lots and lots of fun and now I am looking for some other demolition jobs around the yard. (Although I have to get rid of that nasty wood pile first). Check out the photos in Lower Deck album.