Deck Nightmares

The 2x4 deck

The nightmare started the first snow fall in 2010, try shoveling snow off of short crocked 2x4's. Steve replaced some of the 2x4's and screwed them down, he also had to fix one of the set of stairs. That is when we discovered the cover up. Ply wood over a rotten board. Walk softly and hope the refrigerator doesn't give out, it will not hold that weight, two guys and a fridge. Spring of 2012 came the invasion of ants in the bathroom. Everyday for a week we would vacuum them up, poor things. How were they getting in. I crawled under the deck, after I covered myself for protection of spiders and my imagination. I discovered someone used chip board to enclose the kitchen addition and it was rotting away. So continued the deck nightmares.

Rotting chip board under the deck enclosing the kitchen addition

Rotting corner post, it swiveled in position.

This summer Steve removed half of the deck so we could get a better idea of what we were looking at. Someone had nailed short 2x4's onto the rotten deck joists another cover up. Then  he removed the chip board and discovered the corner foundation post was also rotting and the insulation was a mess under the kitchen floor.

Under the kitchen addition, notice the electrical wiring, it's not meant to hold up insulation.

This is what you get when you take the 2x4's off.

Old stair foundations. Could they be from 1943 when the house was built?

We discovered many things under the deck, a little rubber duck with a sailor hat, a marble, rusty things, money, cement blocks and the old foundation for the steps that once were, too bad the grate is missing. we will us it for our new stairs. 

One of the large blocks we dug up.

The flower bed in front of the porch must be moved or we will be stepping into it when the new stairs go up.

The flower bed is removed from in front of the step foundation.

New location for the flowers, This is where the Old hot tub was located. The paving blocks were all moved to the side, ready for their new location.

A lot of digging and cleaning.

The back deck is gone, it has been a long journey to this point, days of hammering nails out of rotting boards and taking an ax to the smaller pieces. Being horrified at the though of what we were walking on. Digging down to remove all the soil and debris, soar muscles. After many ideas (dreams) as to what we would replace the back deck with we can only afford to replacing the deck with a smaller deck and one set of stairs.  The paving blocks will go to the side of the house for the new patio. I only hope we can get the stairs in soon, it's snowing today!

Steve loading the truck with the unwanted rotting boards.