2 March 2014

Wow!! I did neglect you!!!

Checking back on the last post, I only now realise how long it has been since I reported on progress.

Well, we rounded the ends of the board on the eastern side, and put up the fibre board. Then we sealed / stained the whole deck. It looks lovely. The timber looks better than our floorboards.

We had a lot of fun with the blimp sticking out from the deck. We had various explanations for it. In the event of a major flood, I can sit on the deck and do some fishing. The other one is that when I become frail, Elna can park a van next to it and I can drive in with my mobility scooter. The real explanation is that we want to build a ramp there, but it is a greater priority to get the other decks done.

Well, we need to have at least the street side (southern side) of the deck done by end of March. On the first of April we are having a 150 year commemoration of the last battle of the land wars which took place just outside of town.

I started looking for decking, but found it all had grooves, and we want to have it smooth. Also, I was not impressed with the quality. Eventually I called a dealer and asked what he had. Turned out they had a supply of 140 mm wide, 32 mm thick decking, properly treated. I went to have a look and was impressed. Most of it is clears both sides. We made a rough calculation as of quantity he has got available, and had it delivered the same day. Turned out they sent only 36 boards, the remainder is warped, etc. Lovely timber to work with and we started right away. There was a problem though, the thickness of 32 was different from the 25 mm spacers I have inserted under the posts. The spouting (gutters) was fitted with these spacers in place. If I liftted the veranda roof, the water would not run off from the spouting. This meant that I had to remove and cut each post down by 7 mm, keeping in mind that the posts each has a 8 mm steel rod glued into the foot to hold it in position. This meant I had to cut each post by hand, all 10 of them.

In the end the deck worked out quite nice. We did have a problem though, we did not have enough timber. I went by car and selected and cut another 8.5 meter of board. This allowed us to finish the street (southern) side. We could also seal the whole deck. We have not put the fibre board under the deck yet.

The remainder of the timber is on order. Let us hope it arrives soon.

Our rainy season is coming, and I have two roofs by the sheds that has no flashing yet. I have decided to do that tomorrow.