We Weren't Expecting That

Today I thought I would show you real life around the Savvy household. I told you that one of the main projects I would like to see done around here this year is to update the deck. Our home and the deck is twenty years old this year and the deck is really showing its age. About three weeks ago on a Saturday morning Mr. Savvy went outside on the deck and flipped a board over at the steps. He was thinking he could flip all the boards over and they would be new and fresh until he realized just how much work that would be. He's scrapping that idea.

What he found when he removed a couple boards was the fact that the top of the steps supports were decaying.

He got a much bigger surprise when he removed the boards next to the sun room wall and lo and behold more rot in a major way! He could not believe how extensive this was. We sure weren't expecting that!

When he realized water had been getting behind the exterior planks and soaking into the wood on the wall he knew he had a big job in front of him. He had to removed all the exterior planks all the way down to the ground under the deck. Then the old rotten wood had to be removed and replaced with new wood and a membrane over it so that doesn't happen again. After he first removed the wood and found this problem it started raining and rained most of the week. So this project was on hold till the bad weather passed.

This is just some of the mess I have to look at outside everyday until this job gets finished.

This is how it looked yesterday morning. The wall is all fixed, planked, and painted.

The top of the stairs have been repaired, too.

Yesterday morning the deck looked much neater.

And by late morning it looked like this again. See that new board that is down. The mister pulled up a board that has always had sap running out of it. He said that board was so hard to get up that it broke in four pieces. I'm so glad the sappy board is gone.

So the work continues today and who knows how long after that. He is putting up gutters on the sun room since we never did after adding this room on many years ago. The top of the deck rails are going to be replaced with nicer wider boards and then we need to pressure wash and paint. We will paint the rails with regular exterior paint, but we want to try some of the new deck paint on the floor and steps that adds a rubbery protective coating.

So anyway this will be a slow go for a bit, but I'm so glad it has been started and glad we found our rotting wall. It's always something.

While Mr. Savvy worked out back I was very busy out front. I decided the dark green lirope needed to leave. I had a mix of the variegated and the green and the solid green stuff was just spreading and taking over so it's outta here! In a future post I'll share more about what I did.

I do know one thing this chick is sore all over. I used to work from morning till night outside and I just can't do it anymore. Gosh, this aging thing sucks!

So this is real life around the Savvy household. 

I promise much prettier photos tomorrow.

I hope y'all have a very pretty Sunday!

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