Home Improvement, Part 1

This weekend, I took all three days off. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Time away from work was certainly needed, and I feel as though I have taken full advantage of the opportunity. So now I will document my exploits for the weekend.

This is the underside of my deck. The rat problem prompted me to actually look underneath. As you can see, it is covered in cob webs, but was actually fairly clean.

Note, however, the large 4x4 post, and how it looks like it is rotting away. That's because it is. For the most part, the deck simply broke apart. which generally made for some easy removal. I will say however, whoever built this deck must have assumed that it was going to last forever. I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion, but I think it was ill-conceived.

The end result of two days deck removal:

I figure there is about 2 or 3 dump trips there, if not more. Lucky me. But, the end results are looking promising. Sadly, money constraints won't allow me to complete this project immediately. But so far, here is what I have accomplished:

Its a work in progress for sure. In the end though, it will make sitting in the backyard a lot more enjoyable. There are some details still to work out, like the dirty looking strip across the house where the deck used to be. I figure if it doesn't clean up enough a planter can be put there, or something of that nature. But its been nice to have a weekend project, and I figure I'll be working on it over the next couple of weeks until its done.

Sadly, I have been doing this project generally on my own, fortunately I had my partner here: