Replanking a deck

This weekend I replanked our front deck. Given that it was 20+ years old, the wood was warping, nails would work themselves loose and sitck up and there was a strange bounciness near the top stairs, it was long overdue.

So on Friday my brother-in-law Patrick and I figured out how many 1x6s we needed and headed to Lowes. $300 worth of wood and deck screws later, we were ready for Saturday morning.

We started by demo'ing the stairs. It went smoothly enough because the idiot that built the deck used finishing nails. The wood popped right up but left us pulling a lot of rusty nails. Here's a pic of the new steps, note the warped old boards on the top of the deck.



Then we moved on to the top deck and discovered the source of the 'bounciness'.



While the joists had joist hangers on the ledger board attached to the house, apparently the idiot just used nails to attach the front of the joists to the front step joist. WTF! No wonder we had 'bounciness', the fucking joists weren't attached! A quick trip to the hardware store and 15 minutes later, we were back in business.

Why didn't I do this in April or May? I had to pick one of the hottest, most humid days of the year, I think it was 90F with about 90% humidity yesterday. About 2pm I realized my neck was hot and that I had forgotten all about sunscreen. Not good for my pale Irish skin, I can tell you that. I put some on and just hoped I wasn't closing the barn door after the horse got out.

We finally finished up about 8pm and for helping me, I took Pat out for a nice porterhouse dinner at the local steakhouse. This morning I woke up feeling like I had gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson, my arms are burned and my neck crunches everytime I turn my head.

But the deck is now rock solid and looks great! It was an effort that was well worth it. The deck actually wraps around the house so that's my next project and then it will be onto the back deck.

Finished product: