Out With The Old!

The "in with the new" part is gonna have to wait for a bit.

Start with a crappy old deck

Knock out the spindles as if they're hardly attached.

Cut off the rails, then start on the floorboards.  A cheerleader in pink PJ's is a definite must-have.

Continue with the floorboards.  Continue minimal conversation with silly cheerleader.

Isn't this an awesome shot? Yeah, that pile down there was what I was SUPPOSED to be doing, rather than taking pictures....

Once all the floorboards were out, Hubs detached the incredibly unsafe spiral staircase. 

Wibble-wobble it some, and then stand back and HOPE we don't bang it up, as it's been promised to a friend.

A little upside down, but absolutely no worse for the wear!  It handled its fall splendidly!

More mess, more cheerleading, more loitering on my part.

Cut the joists out of the top....

Then cut all the parts off around the perimeter.

 By the way, that little 3-foot wall to Hubs' right - that's where the water-rot-but-no-termites wall is.  Soon, a post will be showing Hubs ripping off that siding and fixing that very wall (see the next pic for the full area we'll be replacing).....

Hubs cut and cut and cut.

Then he pulled and pulled and pulled.

And FINALLY it fell!

And then he chopped it up into tiny pieces so I could actually pull them to the already-full dumpster.  Yeah.  It's full.  AGAIN.

And this is the last picture I got before my camera battery died.

So I went out and snapped this one for y'all this morning.

Yes, I chained and locked that door and had a very meaningful conversation with my 3 year old about never opening the door anymore, not letting the animals use that door, etc etc.  Don't worry, I won't be posting about someone falling from there.

And lastly, maybe you're asking yourself why I didn't finish up and clear all the rest of those boards out of there?  Or why Hubs didn't finish completely either?  Several reasons - 1) it was raining. 2) Hubs could barely hold the hammer anymore. 3) We had both hurt ourselves. 4) It was 9pm. 

And 5) - 

There was nowhere else to put it!!!

Look for another dumpster exchange post tomorrow.  We're meeting with inspectors for permits tonight, so no work!