Operation Build-A-Deck, day 2

Brilliant sunshine dawned on the McCallen house Saturday with the hope and promise of a big day ahead. It was a big day, but it wasn't a big day for the deck.

Let's see...

I finished mulching the flower beds and pots.

David hauled away the cement chunks that were formally our back steps.



He also burned a good chunk of our branch (tree) burn pile. I mowed one side lawn and a third of the front.

David prepared his tools and made a new sawhorse to get him ready for the decking.



I made "hiding" curtains for the back side of our pseudo island counter top. Noah took two naps and entertained himself with mom and dad in between.

And then, five hours after the scheduled delivery time of 1 p.m., a Lowe's truck pulled up to our house with a giant stack of lumber and tools. Finally!

It took them a half-hour, maybe more, to get all the lumber off the truck and stacked in our backyard.



By then it was 6:30 or so, and all three of us were starving. Fast-forward another 30 minutes, and David was ready to start on the deck.

For the next two hours we worked studiously on running the framing lines and digging the first two post holes. Once Noah went to bed, we worked together on mixing the concrete and filling them.

So at the end of day 2, we have two posts. They are pretty, those two giant posts which will be the outer edges of our cozy, 16' deck.



We're feeling good that Sunday could be a deck-filled day!

But, it wasn't the deck or the yard work that made Saturday interesting. More on that next...