Monday, May 7, 2012

Deck Progress. No, seriously.

So you remember that time where we finished our living room project (mostly) and we (and I really mean "I") got all ambitious and was like, "Onto the deck project!" and Matt gave me the side eye like I had gone mad because it's just not in his nature to be all productive on home improvement projects?

Sure you do.

Well I will have you know that we actually have progress!

I think you can all remember what my back porch used to look like. Matt tried to get the concrete stairs out himself by trying to drag them out with his Jeep. This did not work and it only resulted in HUGE tire track holes in my yard and it moved the steps just enough for Jackson to fall through only every time he went outside. Matt told me he would have to rent a super duper jack hammer and that this was expensive (lie) and it would take him at least a whole day (lie) and it wasn't worth it.

Then I ended up working a ton of hours at work for two weeks and guess what? Matt rented that super duper jack hammer for only $50 because it only took him two hours to do.
 tee-fucking-dah.

And because I have this reasonable fear that if I didn't push him to keep going, our back steps would look like that for the entire summer or longer. So I put on my bitch panties and was making his life fairly miserable when he came into the house for anything other than water or bathroom breaks. And that resulted in this after day one: 
 Obviously, I was meant to be a project manager. 

It's kind of huge, right? So then, the next day it wasn't as nice out but it wasn't raining so outside he goes again. And he put the decking stuff on. And I had him put one of the railing sections on so you could see what that will look like:
SQUEAL. 
He has to cut the last piece of decking that goes against the door, buy some stair stringers so we can put the four foot wide step landing onto the sidewalk, and then lattice so animals don't live underneath it. And something about trim? We also have to get some deck wash (???) and power wash the deck and then DONE.

Oh, and get rid of the concrete because ew.

But the best part about this deck is that so far, we have only the $50 jack hammer rental into it. Matt knows a guy who knew a guy who had this deck and then his wife decided she didn't want this color, she wanted something totally different after only having it up for a month. So they took it all apart and gave it to us for free so long as we hauled it that day. DONE. The other bonus? We have enough to do a front porch too.

I know, I kind of peed a little there too. Totally acceptable.

What isn't funny is that while Matt was digging and getting the steps out he found a lot of empty liquor bottles. We've decided that either the person who built our house or the person who did major foundation repairs to our house was an alcoholic. Either way it's bad but it does explain quite a bit.

What else? Oh, Lillian is still here with her friends. Matt will not let me smudge the house because he's certain I will fuck it up after the cat raping incident he was involved in that very much did not work. Which he probably is right because I don't feel qualified to do this. But we've noticed that if you are watching TV on the couch at night, and you've got maybe one lamp on so it's kind of dark but not too dark, you see flashes of light in the cubby hole. It makes it really hard to focus on my Basketball Wives show if this is happening.

So yay.

11 comments:

____j said...

Woo! Lookin' good!

Unknown said...

go to a local occult store and see if they know someone who will smudge your house.

Unknown said...

holy fuck your husband works fast. My husband will work for 20 minutes, decide he's sweating and stop...for a fucking hour. It took 4 days to get my goddamn floor mopped, and his basement shit (not cleaned up) just moved to another room for my open house. It was like I was asking him to build an entire damn house. Now he's 'off the clock' indefinitely. He ever went so far as to tell me that if I have a list of things that I need done, I should just hire someone. I swear, it's b/c he's lazy not b/c he's incapable. It makes me sooo mad b/c I basically give him to the stuff to do that I CAN'T b/c my back is broke and I get nothing but attitude. Fail.
Now I feel like a bitch for writing this b/c a. I love my hubby and b. I just heard him move laundry to the dryer.

Tina said...

Time to cleanse the house of spirits...

ComfyMom~Stacey said...

no need to smudge. fill a bowl with spring water, add some sea salt to it, say a prayer or something like "bless & cleanse this house" over it and use a cotton or linen rag or natural sponge to paint all the door frames in the house and wash all the doorknobs with the water. Then walk around the outside of the house sprinkling what is left of the water on the ground.
Same result as smudging but much less smokey.

Ang said...

Nice! That looks fricken awesome!!

Shannon @ Bungalow960 said...

I'm so jealous of your deck. I wish we had room for one, but it would end up taking up our entire backyard. It looks awesome.

kimberrleigh said...

HOOORAY for shit getting done! :D I always bitch at my Dad to do stuff around the house (I volunteer my services to help) because it won't take long, i.e.- your deck., and we can do it for decently cheap.
For instance, we have shitty green carpet (I hate carpet so much) in our family room that still reeks of cat piss from (rest her soul) my old kitty, Katie. And it's just all over gross from traffic. We could rip it up in a half a day, and take 1.5 more days to lay tongue-and-groove laminate (or real) wood flooring. Not that hard. But no, huge production if I suggest it.

Ashley said...

Colour me jealous. I want a free deck!

Danielle said...

The amount of progress is freakin awesome!!!!! You're so lucky that Matt is handy ... I wish that Ron was handy because that would make my projects a lot less intimidating.

PS I LOVE Basketball Wives ... the trash is just wonderful to watch. lol

Julie H said...

Sqeee!! How exciting for you!! Looks great so far.

Ummm I'd be talking to a priest or something cuz that's some scary shit.