THE DECK

FINALLY.....we have a new deck!!!  This could be the longest post EVER!  I have been so worried about the deck for years.  It is over the garage and was bad.  The deck was original to the house so about 16 years old.  It was wobbly and the walls were about to come down and the wood was rotten.  My neighbor had hers redone and so I contacted her guy and he came out and got us up and running in 3 days!!  One day for demolition and 2 days for rebuild.  It has been so awesome to go out there and feel safe and know that we aren't going to fall to the ground and die!  I have some before and after pictures:

Here are the before....from here you can see the wall bowing out and if you notice the planks in the corner popping up...

Here you can see the planks on the outside of the deck completely separating and the nail coming out...

Here is a pic looking up at the deck and the planks all lifted up and coming apart....

I took this pic....see the warping and the nails AND I got a bumblebee in the pic....

This is a view from on the deck....here you can see how much the outside wall had moved and how bad the wood planks were...and yes...we had stained it years ago...we thought we were getting a nice stain but it did turn out red...

NOW....happy day....here are a couple of demolition pics:

We love our tall deck walls so we don't have to see neighbors and they can't see us...with the walls gone...HELLO NEIGHBOR!

Here is one with the walls down and one of our guys that fixed everything.....

Another view.....totally took down the wall between me and my neighbor....you can see his hanging basket in the background.....

Here is what is left after the first day.  They kept the main steel beam and built up from there but there were more surprises...

It turns out the that the wood holding the deck up to the house under our back kitchen door was rotted and had to be replaced too....for the love....we are so lucky this thing didn't collapse.  These are pics from downstairs looking up at the back door....

Next picture is the big truck coming with all the new wood at like 6:30 in the morning....I know our neighbors love us!  The truck was sooo big that he had to park at the end and use the tiny drivy thing to bring the wood to our house AND yes I know there is a name for the "tiny drivy thing" but I am at a loss right now as to what the correct name is......my cousin David would probably kill me right now for not knowing what to call the tiny drivy thing.....

Here is his dropping the wood....

He had to make a couple more trips but got it there and finally we have a new deck!!  Here are the after shots...

Here is a corner shot before:

Same corner now:

Sha'Mingo is not gone....we just moved her to the other side of the deck....

And yes...we are getting prices to get the back of the house painted and our deck guy will be coming back in July to seal the deck after the wood is dry. 

I also bought all new brackets for our hummingbird feeders...

AND then....we had this new pharmacy/consignment shop open up where I work.  This place is KILLING me....the artists that sell there are incredible.  I picked up a piece for the deck to hang on the deck.....I loved the idea of the bird flying over the flowers...

I was so happy with that but then I thought....how sweet it would be to have a cloud on the other side to balance it out.  So I went to the store and the owner contacted the artist and they made me a cloud.  I actually got to meet them today and they were so happy and no one had ever asked for a cloud before but they are going to make more.  They did a great job and I will be sending a picture of their final work with the bird and cloud and our existing flowers to them.....I think we are done and done....just have to do the clear water-proofing and done!  BTW.....the puppies love going out there....they do frolic so!