DECK this out!

When Christmas 2009 rolled around we found ourselves with almost 2 weeks off and no where to go. There had been plans to fly up to New Jersey to visit my fam... but with ticket prices as sky high as they were, I just wasn't able to pull the trigger. Then we thought maybe we'd drive back to Mississippi to see Dave's fam... but D would rather scoop his own eye out with a spoon than sit in the car for 20 hours.... so we decided to just rough it out at home.

With no one visiting.

And nothing to do.

I thought we'd be so bored, but honestly... it... was... GLORIOUS. Just glorious I tell you! There was lots of sleeping, and eating, and of course, all the drinking, and maybe some dancing in the living room in our pajamas, and inevitably there was plenty of chicken cutlet cooking and chicken cutlet eating. And every day, EVER DAY! started out like this............ YAWN! Oh jeez what time is it? Wait! I don't have to go to work today YIIIPPEEEEEE!!!! And then maybe I threw a hat in the air like Mary Tyler Moore.

But one morning Dave decided we were having too much fun. I mean, we talked about maybe tackling some sort of project, but I thought we were just talking. Until one morning when I woke up and padded out to the kitchen to get some coffee... passing this scene along the way......

Oh.... blink blink.... So.... we are actually going to DO this project.

And that's the story of how we decided to tackle the deck. Dave ripped half of it up while I was sleeping. Not that I minded actually - it was terribly rotted. It is in a very shady spot, and I don't think the wood was ever really treated to withstand the elements. I was always afraid someone would come over when it was lightly raining and slip and fall right through it and then of course sue the heck out of us. So it's probably a good thing that we (dave) decided it was high time we replaced it. Luckily when Dave ripped up the boards (half of them fell apart in his hands btw ) we found that the frame underneath was not nearly as rotted. In fact, it was downright fine! So we decided to leave it, clean it, and put new boards right back on top. Which saved us a boatload of time and money too.

We used those fake manufactured boards; the most popular brand is Treks, but we opted for the Home Depot generic brand which was slightly cheaper. And I tell ya we could not be more pleased!

Aside from the fact that they already have the pre-stained and pre-sealed look - they are guaranteed to never rot or warp. Which means we NEVER have to do this project again. SOLD! The only thing that's a little funky, is that when you screw in the boards, the shavings sort of pile up around the screw -almost like you're screwing into a crayon, if that makes sense? We ended up just knocking the material back down over the screw, and it ended up looking fine.

Other that that one weird gripe - I have to say -I'm a HUGE fan of the fake wood. Already it looks 500 times better! So this completes Phase 1 of the deck. Rip out and replace old boards. CHECK. Phase 2 involves expanding the deck beyond the original footprint, possibly with different levels. Intrigued? Stay tuned....!