It's Done! (mostly)

Yes, just in time for Stacy's shower (Oct 27th) and the 30 women who were guests for that fun event, Drew finished the deck railing. We did not finish the steps, so Drew just blocked off the opening in the railing to prevent anyone from falling off. The steps will get completed this month. We're in search of stringers cut to the right step depth, but if we don't find them, we'll have to make our own.

Here are some photos, pre-oil application. Drew finished applying the oil this weekend, and I don't have photos of it yet. More to come on that. The color deepened with the oil application.

We could not have finished the deck even to this point without the help of our friends.

We are completely indebted to Mark and Teri Burchfield. Mark came over to help almost every night the last two weeks we were putting down the decking. He actually installed the last row of decking one night while Drew was busy for work. Teri often came over to take care of Jasper while I either helped on the deck or did other projects around the house. They were a huge encouragement to us as we neared the final hours.

Since the start of this project, Yobany has let us use many of his tools. His miter saw is still in our garage and has been vital to the completion of the deck. His biscuit cutter was also critical in our hour of need, and his table saw enabled Drew to make the railing. Mark Foohey lent us his electric drill so we could "double fist" it during the decking installation. Sarah and Jorge Angulo helped us the first day we were learning about putting down the decking. Sarah took care of Jasper while Jorge helped us cut boards and install them. Andy and Kathryn came to help at various critical points, either to take care of Jasper or work on the deck. We are so blessed to have such generous friends - generous with their time and effort.

**Update** I'm not sure how I forgot this the first time around, but another big help during the project was that Chris Roth let us borrow his behemoth pickup truck and 17-foot trailer so Drew could pick up the bull wire for the fence. As Chris stated, "It has the turning radius of a bus," but Drew still had fun driving it. He couldn't figure out where to park it, so for the 12 hours or so that we were borrowing it, Drew just parked it in front of the house. I meant to take a picture of Jasper in relation to the truck. But trust me, it's B-I-G!

Much to our surprise, the portion of building the deck that we thought would be the most straight-forward (aka relatively easy), ended up taking the longest. Laying down the decking boards ended up being much more tedious than we ever imagined and thus really drew out the length of the project. Oh well. Live and learn.

Here are what Jasper's pants looked like after he crawled on the deck the first time ... kinda dirty. I'm very hopeful that with the oil application his clothes will stay a little cleaner.