day 1 desolation

 Deck refurbish day 1: Two burly construction guys in their 60s arrived just before 8am and with barely a moment to say hello they were lifting the heavy stuff off the deck for us. Then boards started flying off the deck at an incredible rate. 

By 9:30 the deck from the south end including the steps from the house were ripped off and stacked in a ricky pile. We tried to say out of the way of the flying boards as we cleaned up the detrus but Carm got a bit too close to one tossed board and got a nasty scrape on his leg. 

Nails! and more Nails! We’ll have a gargantuan task of pulling all the nails to complete over the summer. Then we’ll need Graham with his giant magnet.

I’ll be honest, a few tears almost pricked at my eyes as the first board was ripped off. While I’m looking forward to the new deck, this one will hold a spot in my heart - it gave us 25 years of summers. Oh, it was grizzled and shaky but there are so many wonderful memories.

Our materials were not scheduled to arrive until sometime Tuesday so by 9:45 am Carm dashed out to the Rona to pick up some things that were on the critical path. We seriously didn’t think the demolition could go this fast!

As the morning wore on I wore out… I figured I wasn’t accomplishing much so headed into the house. I may not be good at construction work but I do know how to make snacks! A trip to the garden for some lettuce and a can of tuna with some mayo and scapes morphed into little handheld munchies. They weren’t bad! I’ve taken a pound of butter out of the fridge so tomorrow it’s ready to transform (with help from flour and sugar, and a few other things), into a double batch of chocolate chip cookies.

By 3pm the deck was fully demolished, all the deck blocks & patio stones were stacked, and eight pylons were installed. Time to call it a day! I wasn’t sad to climb (literally) in and then out of the pool :-)

Lupa proved her worth in alerting us to any intrusion into the house - you’d have to be a ninja to sneak into our house! She did start to relax as the day went on and I imagine that as the work continues she’ll calm down more. Adia took the opportunity to make a few new friends :-)

What a day!

Awesome!

“beautiful morning walking in the field”

“fencerows filled with wildflowers”

“seeing the deck come down so fast”