Almost Christmas in Payson

We did not spend Christmas in Payson in 2013 as Mike was going to Hawaii for work the beginning of December so we decided to extend his trip with a 2+ week vacation with friends.  This year we decided to take a few extra days before the holiday and spend it in Payson and invited Mike's mom along for the ride. We were only planning on staying through the 25th as we needed to be back to the Valley after Christmas for some holiday family get-togethers.

There were a couple of projects we wanted to complete during these few days up north.  One was to tear down our old backyard deck in preparation for a new one Bob would be building for us in January.  He had recently done a few decks in Pine and Payson and we thought it was about time to replace ours, as well as give Bob, and his crew, some work during their winter slow time.  As with the insulation job, we decided to save ourselves some money by doing the demo ourselves.  The other project was a new hearth for a pellet stove we bought about a month ago.  This would be Mike's first tiling project since we had all the other house tiling done by a professional. He was, and was not, looking forward to it - was because he had been wanting to try his hand at tiling, and was not, because he was nervous about how it would end up.

The pellet stove is a zero clearance unit, so we only needed to have a tile base to put it on (nothing required on the walls).  Our plan was to put the stove in the front corner of the house, facing into the great room.  It would then be vented out the side of the house instead of through the roof.  Mike had done some research on hearths and decided on a 3/4" plywood base with hardie board and tile on top.  We got 16" tiles as that worked best for the size of hearth we needed (48"x48").  Mike cut the plywood and hardie board to the design we wanted and then attached the hardie board to the plywood with thinset and screws.  Then he had to cut a couple of tiles to match our design (which we purposely made simple for the tile cutting).  These were then placed on the hardie board with more thinset.  We had hoped to have the hearth completed with trim, grout and trim before going home, but other activities during our time in Payson took longer than expected (surprise!) and he had to leave those tasks for another day. The tiling went fairly well. Cutting the tiles was a little more difficult than expected. Because he only had to cut three tiles, he had decided not to rent a tile saw, instead using a tile cutting tool we bought at a swap meet and his dremel. He ended up chipping them a little bit in the front, but those areas will be covered by the trim so the chips won't show.

Our new (new to us) pellet stove

The plywood and hardie board cut and connected

Mike set the tiles in place forgetting he had to cut the small corners (green tape)

Mostly finished product, needs grout and trim (and it is heavy!)

Now we had to tackle the dismantling of the back deck.  We used screwdrivers, hammers, pry bars and a reciprocating saw to disassemble the structure.  We started with the deck planks and tried to unscrew them at first, but found that many of the screw heads were stripped.  In the end we just pried them loose from the joists underneath, which tells you what bad shape those joists were in.  Since we were leaving the header board attached to the house for Bob to deal with, we cut the joists right next to it.  Next we detached the joists from the upright posts.  The last items to be taken out were the posts and Mike was not sure how he was going to remove the concrete bases.  He hit one of the posts with his sledge hammer and the post just fell right over, with the concrete still attached - leaving a medium sized hole in the yard.  We found the same across all the posts - a little scary since those posts are what holds up the full weight of the deck as well as the people on it! We rolled the posts out of the way with the other pile of deck wood.  After tearing out the old deck, we were glad we decided to replace it as it was obviously not structurally sound and was about to fall apart.  We were very lucky we never had any injuries during all the time we used it. Now the area was ready for the new deck in the new year.  Over the next few months, our neighbor took quite a bit of the used deck wood and the rest we put on our trailer and hauled to the dump. When we went to take the extremely heavy concrete stumps to the dump, we were able to roll them up the trailer ramp on our moving dolly, but when we arrived at the dump, there was a very nice young man there who offered to help us take them out. He just grabbed them up and threw them on the pile. Made Mike feel a bit old. On the way out of the dump, we told the attendant we wanted to pay the young man's dump fees. It was only about $20, but he seemed to appreciate it. 

The last picture of Laurie on the old deck

Laurie unscrewing the handrail

Laurie posing while remove deck boards (notice how she is doing all the work!)

Down to the bare bones

No more stairs

The posts were basically sitting on top of the ground

Not much left connected to the house

All cleaned up and moved to the side yard

The posts lined up for a dump run and the neighbor took the boards not the concrete

Our own little wood pile, we decided not to burn it due paints and stains used on the wood

We had planned to go to the casino for their Christmas dinner buffet, but Mike's mom is a vegetarian and at the last minute we were not sure if they would have anything for her to eat.  As a result, we decided to go back to the Valley and catch a bite there.  As the day progressed, we started reading about possible snow in the afternoon so we decided to head out before the weather got too bad.  We got to see some snow flurries before leaving the house, but luckily did not run into anything more on the way home.  We are glad we left early as there were more eating choices available and we had a great dinner at Country Home Buffet.  Mike's mom found plenty that she could eat and, though it was busy, the staff was extremely pleasant and we were seated quickly.

Mom already for snow

Stats: 8 Home Depot trip; 6 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 10/21/14-12/25/14: $6,140
Remodeling expense to date: $49,349