Stop!....It's Hammer Time!

As I said before, our major project for this past weekend was removing the deck along the backside of the house.  And boy, was it a project!

First off, the deck doesn't get much sun thanks to the forrest growing in the backyard, so the wood was covered in moss and decaying leaves and slime.  And it was slick!  I was the only one to take an actual tumble, but there was a whole lot of sliding going on.

Second, because there was a hot tub on the deck, they used 2 x 6's for the deck planking instead of the more standard 1 x 6's.  And, while the joists and posts were rather rotty (is that a word?), the decking was in great shape (aside from the green slimy covering).  I wasn't outside for most of the demolition, but I do know that it took 8 guys with sledge hammers and crowbars about 4 hours to get it all torn down.

Oh, and did I mention the hot tub that had to be moved?  Yeah.  It was heavy.  And awkward.  I'm not sure where the idea came from, but in order to get it off the deck, the men first tipped it up on one side (after draining the mosquito nursery that was under the cover), then placed 4 aluminum poles next to the tub and lowered it carefully onto them.  At that point, it was fairly easy to roll the hot tub to the edge of the deck while removing the poles as they rolled out from under it.  Then, Valerie and I stood on one edge of the tub while all 8 guys positioned themselves along the sides of the tub before carrying a short distance to a couple of pallets we had waiting on the ground.  It all went rather smoothly, except for the part where I slipped on some mud and fell, giving myself a muddy backside and a sore bottom.

We all felt a little bad at having to take the deck down, at least at first.  It turns out it was in better shape than we thought, but since we need to regrade the yard next to the house to keep water from coming into the basement, the deck had to go.  As we got further and further into the removal, however, it became clear that we needed to take the deck down.

The first clue that all was not as it seemed came when they had removed the decking up to the first row of posts.  Turns out those posts were just sitting on the ground.  Not in a hole.  Not in a concrete footer. Just sitting on the dirt.  Then the boys noticed that the joists were held to the posts only by a few nails.  No hangers.  Just tacked on.  As they worked towards the house, it got better.  The joists began to get progressively more rotted to the point that when Alan stepped on one, it disintegrated.  And then they got to the edge of the original deck.  Here, the posts were sitting on concrete footers, but they still weren't attached in any way to the footer.  It was at this point that our friend Chris decided the deck should have been called the table.  And he was right.  It was really just a giant table sitting next to our house.  With a really heavy hot tub sitting on it.

So, as it turns out it was a good thing we had to take it down.  It was dangerous and, it was really only a matter of time before someone got hurt.  Now that it's out of the way, we can work on dismantling the disgusting swamp of a pool.  It is one of the more disgusting things I've ever seen (and possibly home to the Loch Ness Monster or the Creature from the Black Lagoon).  Once it is out of the way, we can waterproof our foundation and work on getting the grading right so that water can't get into our basement any more.  Yay for dry basements and friends with hammers!

A couple of videos of the guys at work:

Oh What a Weekend it Was

Normally the first weekend of the Olympic Games would find me parked in front of a television.  This weekend, however, there were more important things going on.  Friday I got my first look inside our new house since April.  I was a bit underwhelmed.  The carpet had been removed (thankfully, or so I've been told), as had the shower stall and toilet in the Master bathroom.

Maybe it was the fact that the house was so empty, or maybe it was just having more time to look around, but everything seemed so much shabbier this go round.  The paint (which we think is from when the house was built in 1979) is so stained up that some walls are nearly black near light switches and doorways.  The wood molding and baseboards were cut so badly that many don't meet in the corners.  The few light fixtures that exist are outdated and many are broken or missing covers.  And the flower beds were so overgrown with weeds and grass that you couldn't see many of the plants that were planted there on purpose.

Friday was spent mostly looking around and deciding on a plan for the rest of the weekend.  We had gotten a late start since a round of severe storms rolled in about the time I got to Cincinnati.  The power went out almost immediately, and Landon and I watched from the basement as the trees behind the house were nearly laid over flat.  With no electricity, we went out to eat with Landon's parents.  Afterwards we headed to the house to have a look around.  Landon and his Dad started pulling down drywall in the garage to assess the extent of the termite damage there.  It doesn't look good with several of our studs being nearly gone from insects, rodents, and the constant flow of water into the garage due to improper grading of the driveway.

Taking down walls in the garage.

And finding that what's behind the walls isn't all that good.

Saturday started with a trip to a local home supply store to have a look at their selection of cabinets, countertops, vanities, doors, and moldings.  We also popped into the local Habitat ReStore just to see what we could find.  We didn't buy anything, but I'm sure there will be many trips back now that we've had a chance to see what we're lacking.  By 11:30 we were at the house where Landon's Dad Alan was already at work with a couple of friends pulling molding.  I got to work pulling up the staples left from the carpet padding while the boys went to work in the backyard to start dismantling the deck.

At noon, a structural engineer arrived to help us figure out what we can do with the front part of our house.  He had just started his analysis when our friends Brad, Ann, and Alex arrived.  I did a walkthrough with them while Landon worked with the engineer.  Ann is a designer and will be helping me figure out what to do with this house, so I was excited for her to get to see it in person.  We talked about different ideas for how to open up the rooms as well as how to arrange furniture while Brad went out back to work with the other boys on the deck.

We had several other friends arrive over the next few hours, which was good since before the boys could totally dismantle the deck, they had to move the hot tub out of the way.  It took 8 men, 4 metal pipes, 2 wooden pallets, and two women to get the tub off the deck and onto the pallets on the ground.  It seemed easy; except for my spill on the slick deck boards there were no mishaps.  After the hot tub was on the ground, the boys proceeded to dismantle the rest of the deck.

Inside, Ann and I talked paint colors and what walls to take down.  I worked some more on the staples and then, since it was a nice day, we moved outside to tackle some of the weeds.  When we started, the bed next to the driveway looked like this:

Sorry for no "after" picture.  The bees made it hard to take photos.

It wasn't a pretty sight.  There were weeds nearly four feet tall in places as well as some small trees growing up in the beds.  Not to mention the grass.  There was almost as much grass in the beds as there was in the lawn.  But it wasn't all bad.  There were some nice flowers in there, they just needed to be liberated.  We worked on the beds until it was time to quit, and boy were we dirty.  After a quick trip back to Landon's Parents' house where we all showered and changed, we took everyone out to dinner at Silver Springs House.  The food was delicious, but we were all tired.  I had intended to write up a post last night, but once we got back to the house, it was all I could do to stay awake long enough to watch some of the Olympics before crashing into bed.

Today was more low key.  We slept in a bit and got to the house a few minutes after Landon's folks.  The boys started in the garage, working to remove the rest of the drywall, while I picked up the weeds from yesterday's weed pulling festival and then worked on cleaning up a few of the other beds.  I finished the bed next the the front of the house under the front windows before deciding to tackle the small bed around the mailbox.  I was hard at work there when Alan came running out of the garage.  He had found a bee hive between our stone and the fiberboard.  The bees were upset at having their house destroyed, so they chased him out of the garage into the yard.  After he got stung a couple of time in the yard, we both retreated into the house via the back door (using a ladder) since the garage and front door were now swarmed by bees.

Alan ready to do battle with the bees.

Since finishing the yard work was now out of the question, I went to work removing nails from the trim taken down the day before (since we're planning on saving it to use in the basement later).  The men started work removing the rest of the master bathroom, while Valerie (Landon's Mom) worked on more staples.  The two vanities were removed and placed in the master bedroom, and then the drywall between the "vanity room" and the master bath proper was taken out.  Landon also removed the walls and shelves from the master closet.

My master bedroom.  Complete with vanities.  It's a good look.

The room formerly known as the master closet.  Empty.  

Landon and Alan finishing up the vanity removal.

The empty master bath.  All the subfloor in here has to be replaced.
Right now it's nearly an elevator to the basement.

Later, I got into the act a bit and got my first taste of removing some drywall.   While I didn't get to smash it with a sledge hammer like you see on so many of the tv shows, I still found it very fulfilling taking down some walls.  It was certainly more fun that pulling up staples.  All too soon, however, it was time for me to head back to Lexington so I could finish out my last two days of work.  I'll be back on Wednesday, but for now, I'm back in Kentucky (and ready for some sleep).