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All Hands on Deck
Jul. 3rd, 2016 11:49 pmI blame Eric L.
A month and a half ago, I hosted the first board gaming barbecue of the year. It works like this: Eric asks, I agree, folks bring food, he cooks, everyone is very happy.
But I'm standing outside while he barbecues, and I notice that our upstairs deck is starting to really show the weathering.
When our contractor T. built it, he said we should finish it. That was obvious, though we had no idea why he didn't do it himself. This was a general problem, with him not quite finishing things. So it's sat like that for years, and now it's starting to show the wear and tear.
So, I reluctantly realize I really need to do it. I look at the calendar and finally settle on July 3rd, under the theory that I can have a relaxing and fun Saturday (I did!), then work hard on Sunday, then get my mojo back on Monday.
Earlier this week, I picked up finish and brushes and a roller.
So today we were ready.
The day starts like this: Kimberly begins to bring her Adirondack chairs into the house, and I start telling her to bring them back out, immediately.
She asks why, but does, and after she sets them down I point out the wasp hive attached to the bottom of one of the chairs.
Yeah.
It's pretty small, and I just see a couple of wasps, so after she hands me a ruler, I bravely knock it into the yard below.
For the morning, I've got sanding and cleaning scheduled. The sanding goes quite well, in part thanks to a power sander than helps to make all the long, wide surfaces go very quickly.
It's really the railing that causes us the most problems all day, because it's got so many surfaces, and some of them are facing away from the deck and quite hard to get to.
And the deck has cracks in it here and there which I'm not that pleased with, but there's only one board that looks really bad to me, and it's in the middle of the deck, so if it gets flaky, no big.
I had this prep work penciled in for two hours, and indeed we're done by about noon after starting around 10.
I'm quite happy how everything is looking good, and feel like this is going great.
Except we're filthy. That wasn't in my schedule. My pants are caked in dirt and mud and sawdust.
So there's about 15 minutes of cleanup that I didn't see coming, but no big deal.
We go out for lunch at La Bateau Ivre, and we're back by 1.30, which was also what I'd originally planned.
I'd originally thought the actual finishing would take 2-3 hours, but I've revised it to 2-2.5 after seeing how well things went this morning.
Not so much.
All those surfaces we were messing with in the morning: the fronts, backs, and sides of all the slats and posts, are just that much more difficult when going at them with paint brushes and a roller.
But it's really the backs (and other external surfaces) that are the most painful. I spend infinite amounts of time painting stuff I can't see, then looking out and seeing I still don't have complete coverage. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Our Acacia neighbors see us working and take pity on us in the afternoon. They ask if we'd like to borrow a ladder. I agree, and I use it for the side of the deck facing our teeny yard (as opposed to the side facing their yard, which we'd already done, and where there was no room for a ladder.)
It keeps feeling like it's going to vibrate apart when I climb, but otherwise it's quite sturdy, and I'm able to get to the outside of that final (and biggest) edge of the deck much easier. I even finish some of the lower surfaces and the main post, which I thought I'd have to do another day.
(Yay!)
When I return to the deck (after returning the ladder) everything goes much more quickly. We've got surfaces that can be rolled and are visible, which makes it much easier.
But by 4.30 or so we've still got the biggest chunk of wood to go: the surface of the deck itself. It looks super daunting, but the roller goes really quickly on it. And we have just barely enough finish. (At the end I'm worried about running out, but we have enough left afterward for some minor touchup.)
By 5 or so we're done.
Whew!
So, 3.5 hours of finish application.
It's an exhausting day overall. I'm not used to 5.5 hours of physical labor, and this isn't even walking or biking or something else that I've built up muscles for.
But other than a few aches and pains, I'm feeling good by evening.
And we got the deck finished!
Here's the unhappy coda: When I planned this out, I thought I was fixing the last major problem that T. left us.
But T. also redid our downstairs bathroom. He famously electrified the bathtub. And yesterday when I'm showering, I discover that our downstairs bathtub is leaking through the floor. Not good!
So, we've got another T.-related problem to fix. And my guess is that it's actually some of the shower piping that's leaking, which would mean it's going to be a major repair.
I need to do some better investigation tomorrow, to try and diagnose the problem before getting a plumber out.
And here's the other unhappy coda: I really wanted to shower after all that hard work, but before I could I had to clean our (usually unused) upstairs shower and hang a curtain.
Ugh.
Now done.
The day ends like this: A wasp flutters around the upstairs bathroom while I'm showering. I'm too tired to care. But afterward I hunt down the poor thing and kill it because I don't want it hurting our cats.
It was probably very confused about where its hive went.
A month and a half ago, I hosted the first board gaming barbecue of the year. It works like this: Eric asks, I agree, folks bring food, he cooks, everyone is very happy.
But I'm standing outside while he barbecues, and I notice that our upstairs deck is starting to really show the weathering.
When our contractor T. built it, he said we should finish it. That was obvious, though we had no idea why he didn't do it himself. This was a general problem, with him not quite finishing things. So it's sat like that for years, and now it's starting to show the wear and tear.
So, I reluctantly realize I really need to do it. I look at the calendar and finally settle on July 3rd, under the theory that I can have a relaxing and fun Saturday (I did!), then work hard on Sunday, then get my mojo back on Monday.
Earlier this week, I picked up finish and brushes and a roller.
So today we were ready.
The day starts like this: Kimberly begins to bring her Adirondack chairs into the house, and I start telling her to bring them back out, immediately.
She asks why, but does, and after she sets them down I point out the wasp hive attached to the bottom of one of the chairs.
Yeah.
It's pretty small, and I just see a couple of wasps, so after she hands me a ruler, I bravely knock it into the yard below.
For the morning, I've got sanding and cleaning scheduled. The sanding goes quite well, in part thanks to a power sander than helps to make all the long, wide surfaces go very quickly.
It's really the railing that causes us the most problems all day, because it's got so many surfaces, and some of them are facing away from the deck and quite hard to get to.
And the deck has cracks in it here and there which I'm not that pleased with, but there's only one board that looks really bad to me, and it's in the middle of the deck, so if it gets flaky, no big.
I had this prep work penciled in for two hours, and indeed we're done by about noon after starting around 10.
I'm quite happy how everything is looking good, and feel like this is going great.
Except we're filthy. That wasn't in my schedule. My pants are caked in dirt and mud and sawdust.
So there's about 15 minutes of cleanup that I didn't see coming, but no big deal.
We go out for lunch at La Bateau Ivre, and we're back by 1.30, which was also what I'd originally planned.
I'd originally thought the actual finishing would take 2-3 hours, but I've revised it to 2-2.5 after seeing how well things went this morning.
Not so much.
All those surfaces we were messing with in the morning: the fronts, backs, and sides of all the slats and posts, are just that much more difficult when going at them with paint brushes and a roller.
But it's really the backs (and other external surfaces) that are the most painful. I spend infinite amounts of time painting stuff I can't see, then looking out and seeing I still don't have complete coverage. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Our Acacia neighbors see us working and take pity on us in the afternoon. They ask if we'd like to borrow a ladder. I agree, and I use it for the side of the deck facing our teeny yard (as opposed to the side facing their yard, which we'd already done, and where there was no room for a ladder.)
It keeps feeling like it's going to vibrate apart when I climb, but otherwise it's quite sturdy, and I'm able to get to the outside of that final (and biggest) edge of the deck much easier. I even finish some of the lower surfaces and the main post, which I thought I'd have to do another day.
(Yay!)
When I return to the deck (after returning the ladder) everything goes much more quickly. We've got surfaces that can be rolled and are visible, which makes it much easier.
But by 4.30 or so we've still got the biggest chunk of wood to go: the surface of the deck itself. It looks super daunting, but the roller goes really quickly on it. And we have just barely enough finish. (At the end I'm worried about running out, but we have enough left afterward for some minor touchup.)
By 5 or so we're done.
Whew!
So, 3.5 hours of finish application.
It's an exhausting day overall. I'm not used to 5.5 hours of physical labor, and this isn't even walking or biking or something else that I've built up muscles for.
But other than a few aches and pains, I'm feeling good by evening.
And we got the deck finished!
Here's the unhappy coda: When I planned this out, I thought I was fixing the last major problem that T. left us.
But T. also redid our downstairs bathroom. He famously electrified the bathtub. And yesterday when I'm showering, I discover that our downstairs bathtub is leaking through the floor. Not good!
So, we've got another T.-related problem to fix. And my guess is that it's actually some of the shower piping that's leaking, which would mean it's going to be a major repair.
I need to do some better investigation tomorrow, to try and diagnose the problem before getting a plumber out.
And here's the other unhappy coda: I really wanted to shower after all that hard work, but before I could I had to clean our (usually unused) upstairs shower and hang a curtain.
Ugh.
Now done.
The day ends like this: A wasp flutters around the upstairs bathroom while I'm showering. I'm too tired to care. But afterward I hunt down the poor thing and kill it because I don't want it hurting our cats.
It was probably very confused about where its hive went.