A Really Huge Deck

Okay, so what did you think you just read there in the title?  Uh huh.  Shame on you, but thanks for landing here because there is some bragging to be done.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I would replace my deck.  True to my word, work started in earnest that next Sunday.  A little backstory first, though.

When I moved into the new Rants Rental Manor, the deck was in poor shape.  The railings were faded, dry and rough.  The decking wood was shot and in terrible condition.  I guessed at the time ten good years had passed without so much as a proud-nail smackdown.  Being the imaginary carpenter that I am, I promptly hammered the standing nails and bandaged my toe.  In the meantime, winter came and went, the wood eroded more and the nails sprung back out.

We spend a lot of time outdoors in good weather, so this huge deck problem could not stand.  Or just lay there, rotting.  I spoke to my landlord and pitched an idea to him.  Being handy with tools, I proposed that I’d handle all the procurement and installation and logistics of replacing the deck if he’d absorb the cost of materials, taken out of my rent.  He agreed, and I’m now in free labor mode.

The project kicked off by over-staining the faded, baby-poo orange stain on the railing portions.  As you can see in this crappy smartphone snap, the big deck is rotten, but the new, dark color really looks great.  Upright, dark wood always appears sturdier.  This involved upside-down painting and other positions I don’t naturally contort myself into, but by Saturday morning Phase One was complete.

Rants’ grill is Internet Famous and too cool for this photo.

 

Phase Two – where I am right now – involves staining thirty 2×6 boards, each sixteen feet long.  Yes, this is really, really long wood.  I had it delivered and planned to put it all into the garage for this work.  At first, I wasn’t sure I could fit my wood inside, but the Rants Shop (garage mainly) was sufficiently deep enough.  The plan is to stain the boards on three sides and then coat them on all four surfaces with a weather sealant.

The trick is to juggle the boards as I rotate them up onto the sawhorse where I can work.  That idea went out the window because the stain has to dry before I can move, flip or turn them.  You don’t want handprints on your wood where everyone can see them.  Anyway, I spent all day this past Saturday and Sunday again bent into painful positions as I carefully brushed my wood over and over.

It took some effort to stuff all this wood inside (case of beer for scale)

 

The good news here is I got seven boards coated and ready to go.  The weather coat takes two days to dry.  Once my wood is no longer sticky to touch, I can move it board by board to the back and screw it down.  The one extra board will repair the steps down to the yard.  After that, I won’t have to worry about guests hurting themselves on my deck.

If my shoulders survive this project, I’ll take some more photos of my huge deck and post them here for everyone to see.  All shameless wordplay aside, this is quite a project, but I’m having fun.