[jyl]

Had a fun but tiring weekend helping a friend rebuild his deck.

This is a Deck, each side is roughly 50 feet long by 12 wide, wraps around three sides of the house. Ranges from 5 to 8 feet above the ground. It was built in the 1970s, reportedly not all that well constructed, but for a wood deck to survive 40 years in a densely forested area of wet coastal NorCal seems okay to me. We only did one side.

A few months ago, my friend's carpenter buddy installed new posts and beams under the existing structure. Earlier this week they removed about 1/2 of the old joists and decking, and de-nailed the old decking. Idea is to re-use the old decking as it is old-growth redwood planks up to 20 feet long. I got there on Friday morning, and carried stacks of joists and deck material around to get the work area organized for a good workflow. Then we got the de-nailed decking milled down. We ripped 1/2" off each side, planed the pieces to a uniform thickness, rounded over the upper edges. Another guy arrived mid-afternoon and we removed most of the remaining decking and joists, piled those up for salvage. On Saturday about 8 more guys (and assorted wives, kids, and dogs) arrived. Four guys de-nailed the remaining old decking, I cut blocking from old joists, four guys finished demo-ing the old deck's posts and beams then installed and flashed new ledger. I led a team to mill down the salvaged decking, we had a nice assembly line going on with the table saw and planer. A pretty over-educated work crew, all graduate degrees and PhDs outnumbered Masters. I got this job because I am Mr. Safety around power tools (especially table saws with the guard and riving knife removed, creepy) and because with my recently gouty ankle I wasn't volunteering to climb around on half-built structure 10' high. We burned through 2 sets of planer blades but didn't otherwise abuse the equipment or lose any digits.

Carpenter guy and my friend who owns the house led the rest of the guys who were installing the new joists, blocking, putting water-barrier tape over the joists. One of the ladies painted the cut blocks with some sort of water treatment, and another did some de-nailing but - sexism alert! - otherwise the girls were not particularly interested in getting covered with sawdust.

By the end of Saturday all the joists were installed. On Sunday we finished milling all the decking and by noon when I left, there were a few courses of decking installed. My friend and his carpenter buddy will finish the decking and do the railings and benches over the coming weekends. The remaining work is okay for a solo guy now.

It wasn't all work - there were great meals, lots of wine and beer, sitting around the fireplace, catching up and having various intellectual conversations. I don't think football got mentioned once, but there was a long discussion about the biochemistry of the methane-eating bacteria at 1500 meters in the Gulf.

This old house is all DIY maintained. No other way to afford it. Three stories, 10 bedrooms, built in the late 1800's of first-growth redwood. It could easily absorb $500K of contractor work and my friend doesn't have that kind of money. Lucky for his friends including me, because we have a reason to get together and have a good time.

I thought my ankle would hurt, with carrying all that wood around, but it got better as the weekend went on. I felt better at the end than at the start.

And next year we'll do the second side, I guess in 2012 we'll finish it.