Dead Wood

When we bought our house I have to admit that having a deck was a selling point. I didn't give the up keep much thought; ever. I think the first owners of the house had it installed while they lived here before us. It was not brand new but new enough. We didn't do any preserving or much up keep and it shows. It's been through hurricanes, standing water, animals, carpenter bees, paint splatters, rats and bunnies gnawing on it and tons of snow, not to mention the scorching hot summers. I think the deck was well worth someone else's money. Now it's our turn to upgrade the yard and make it ours. After eighteen years, I think it's time.

So the weekend of July 4th we finally decided to do the deed. It was a back breaking deed, but it got done. We tore down the deck to parade rest (my husband loves that expression). There was digging, prying, hammering, sweating and swearing , but it got done.
This is the deck before the day of demo. As you can see the steps coming down into the yard had rotted away and my cheap solution was to use pavers stacked up to serve as the new steps. It's hard to tell from this photo, but the section of the deck we tore up sits up higher than the portion of the deck that is closest to the sun room door. Let's face it. It's a mess.
This the view from the deck after all the floor board were taken off. It took all morning. Then we took a break to top off our fluids, eat lunch and have a nap to recoup. The afternoon was spent taking out the bottom frame. What a job that was. We had to get a rather large sledge hammer to tear up the foundation boards.
This is the view from the part of the deck that is still intact. You can see part of the garden straight ahead. Notice the fence? We did that to keep the dogs out and so far it has worked really well. So as you can see everything is still in progress. We plan a small herb garden that will have a potting bench. A small fence has been put up since these pictures were taken. We still have to decide on stones for the new patio and rip up the other half of the deck. Weekends is the only time we have to work on this so it's going to be a slow process. I don't care if it takes all summer as long as we make some progress on it every weekend. We are planning on taking some of the foundation deck boards that are in good shape and making two more large raised beds for the garden and to make the potting bench. I hate thinking about the good wood being wasted so we have plans for it. I am excited that we are finally making progress. Stay tuned.