A New and Bigger Deck

When we decided to have our deck redone, we had some ideas of what would make it better.  We came up with a design that we felt would best optimize the space.  We extended the depth of the deck from 10 feet to 15 feet.  We moved the stairs from the side of the deck, by the back door, to the side of the deck closer to the concrete patio and had it be next to the deck so it did not extend into the yard.  We felt this placement would be good for when (if) we extend the deck the full length of the house. The design also had an opening in the deck to access the concrete patio.  With the current deck, to get to it from the concrete patio, you either had to climb over the railing or we had to go down into the yard, across the yard and over to the deck stairs.  This new design would gives us more freedom to go between the back patios.

A reminder of what the old deck was like

We gave Bob our design and he drew it up and gave us the supply list.  In order to maximum the promotions offered by Home Depot, we ended up placing two separate orders. They did not stock quite a bit of the wood we needed so it had to be ordered.  Laurie received the call to schedule the delivery, but, when it arrived, it only contained a few pieces of the order. Apparently the delivery person did not realize there were two separate orders. After a lot of phone calls, we got it straightened out, but the 2nd part of the order was not able to be delivered for another week. This threw the schedule out of whack and caused additional delays because Bob had to work it into his other jobs. It was also very rainy during January which pushed the schedule further behind. Not too big of a deal, but a little inconvenient living in a house, with a very active dog, when the back door is not in service.

Over the next few weeks, Laurie was in Payson to help with staining and run errands for supplies and lunch.  Part of the new build also included attaching flashing between the deck and the house as the previous owners had not done a good job installing that.  We had already replaced some wood under the house when we replaced the kitchen flooring due to the flashing issue. 

The staining begins using quite a bit of the front yard (Roscoe the dog supervises)

And some of the backyard

Delivery delays allowed bad weather, not great working conditions

Sunny days brought more staining

Then the work began in the mud

Starting to resemble a deck

Most of the snow is gone, but mud is aplenty

Even during construction, more wood had to be stain and stored

Looks even more like a deck

It looks so much brighter than the old one

Getting there, but still some left to do

At the beginning of February, we had our brand new deck. It really turned out nice and gives us plenty of room.  The access to the concrete patio works very well and the stairs are placed perfectly.  Laurie wanted some accent lighting, so she bought some solar post lights like what we have in the front yard for each of the deck posts.  It looks very pretty at night.  Now we just needed to have a party to test it out.

Now it is complete and looks fabulous,with access from the concrete patio

The color really stands out

The wider depth makes a big difference

A nice, solid staircase

It looks ginormus (yes that s a word)

The spindles turned out great

One more view from the yard

And the stairs from the other side showing the opening in the back to the patio

A great view of the stairs, railings and post lights

Laurie tried to capture the solar led post lights and you can see some near the stairs

Stats: 3 Home Depot trips; 0 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 12/26/14-2/03/15: $1,857
Remodeling expense to date: $51,206

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

A Nephew and Niece Weekend

This was another non-working weekend as we had family up from the valley.  One of our nephews and his wife recently bought a house in the Show Low area, where they have been living ever since he got a job with the police department.  They invited family and friends to a Halloween/house-warming party and we decided to attend.

Other family members were planning on going so we invited another niece and her husband (along with their adorable daughter, Mia) to stay with us since it is such a long trip to Show Low from the valley.  It was fun having them at the house again (they have been here before), but Mia was older now and our niece was pregnant with their 2nd child.  They seemed to appreciate the downtime as well as the entertainment we provided for Mia.

Just got here and already crashed

Parents getting a chance to lounge around

They brought a tricycle up with them for her to use, though Mia was still not skilled with pedaling it yet.  Mike used an adjustable hiking stick we have to push the tricycle while she was on it.  We were able to go on a long walk around the neighborhood, even up and down some hills.  Mia really enjoyed the trip.  She was very sad when it ended.

Most of the time we just spent relaxing, but we had to start getting ready for our two hour trip to Show Low for the Saturday night party.  Mia got dressed up in her new costume for the event.  The trip over was uneventful, though we had some trouble getting a computer to work for the on-the-road entertainment.  Eventually the issue was resolved and on we went.

A cute little purple witch

The party was fun and we enjoyed touring our nephew/niece's lovely new house and meeting their friends and co-workers.  One of the friends owns a Karaoke business and brought all their equipment.  Mike even got to sing a couple of songs before we left.  We could not stay too late because we had a two hour trip home and Mike is always worried about elk and deer on the road at night.  Just before we were about to leave, another family came to the party with some kids and Mia got to play for a little while. She especially enjoyed playing with our nephew's niece who was dressed up as Elsa (from Frozen). Mia was very sad to leave Elsa so we stopped off at McDonald's for her to play a little bit and to get drinks for the ride home.

The next day was quiet and relaxing and we took Mia on another tricycle ride.  She really loved getting pushed by Uncle Mike.  After that it was time for them to pack up and go home, which made us all sad.

Rocking out, but it is really quiet for the adults

One last crash before heading home

Stats: 0 Home Depot trips; 1 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 10/15/14-10/20/14: $0
Remodeling expense to date: $43,209

Making The House Warmer

Ever since the remodel started back in July 2010, we noticed we were missing quite a bit of insulation from underneath the house.  In addition, there were new electrical wires and plumbing run during those first few months which meant more insulation had to be removed. The remaining insulation, still in the joists, had been put in backwards by a previous owner (paper side down).  We were finally at a point to put in new insulation.

We had been researching this project for quite some time to be sure we were doing it correctly and our plan was to do the work ourselves.  We had also had some conversations on the subject with our handyman Bob, who years earlier had said he wanted nothing to do with it.  However, as we began formulating a plan of action, we realized how nasty of a job it was going to be. In addition, Mike's work had been taking up more of his time than when we started our house remodel, so, in order to get this project done before the winter and not wait another year, we asked (begged) Bob to reconsider and he agreed, although I'm sure that in the midst of the project he wished he had stuck to his original decision.

To save money, we decided to remove the existing insulation ourselves. So we both got suited up in coveralls, masks, eyewear, knee pads and gloves and dove into the dark, dank, smelly crawlspace.  Since Laurie is smaller, she got the fun job of going back into the far reaches of the crawlspace - braving huge spiders and possible snakes - to pull down the insulation which she then passed to Mike (wasn't that nice of him!).  Then all the old insulation was dragged slowly to the crawlspace opening and thrown into our rented dumpster.  We had just enough room for it. We did not get any photos of this activity, but Mike used his GoPro and captured some of the highlights. Here is just a snippet of what went on down under. This was horrible work and we would not recommend that anyone do this themselves. Pay a couple of youngsters $300 and save yourselves a lot of sore body parts.

After we completed the insulation work, Mike installed protective covers on the light fixtures in the crawlspace.  When the lights were installed in 2010, they were just generic bases with a light bulb.  Since that time, Mike and others have come close to breaking off a light bulb or two during a trip into the crawlspace.  Mike also knows that, based on home improvement shows he has seen, bare bulbs like this are not to code.  We bought some plastic cages from Amazon  that connect to the base and cover the bulb (could not find anything similar at our local stores).  We hoped this would protect the workers and the bulbs during the installation of the insulation.

Now protected from head banging

Now that the space was clear, it was ready for Bob and his crew.  We had purchased all the supplies in advance online and had it delivered to the house.  The materials we settled on were unfaced R21 batting, held in place with steel pins, and then covered with 6 MIL plastic sheeting to protect it from bugs and small animals.  It took 3 guys just under two days to complete the whole project.  Laurie took some pictures of their activity for our records as shown below.  A week later our camera stopped focusing which we can only attribute to all the dust and insulation that was in the air. Mike found some online sources on how to clean it, but it was never the same after that.  Will have to add a new camera to the remodeling costs.

One of Bob's workers crawling around

A picture of Bob putting up insulation

After the plastic was put in place

Nice and neat

Even Zena likes the new cleaned up crawl space

Can still see the insulation through the plastic

Stats: 4 Home Depot trips; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 9/02/14-10/14/14: $1,408
Remodeling expense to date: $43,209