What the??? – #1LinerWeds

“OK, this is better. Stop messing with my deck.”

Several of my Maddie’s regular followers have mentioned that progress on the area outside my workshop Maddie’s deck has been in a holding pattern. This is true. I had planned to take enough vacation days to give myself several long weekends to finish that project. Then July happened. The Hartford area experienced the hottest July on record, with 19 days over 90°f (32°c) and almost as many days where the heat index (how yucky it feels to be outside) was over 110°f (43°c). Those are not good days for construction activity.

Last Friday and Saturday, the temps dropped into the mid-80s and I decided it was time to get that project back on track.

The remaining tasks include: installing vinyl siding on the back wall. Installing vinyl soffit on the ceiling. Wrapping the support beam in some permanent material that I never have to paint. Installing vinyl soffit in the overhead area outside the support beam. Building a wide stair, and installing composite decking.

The decking will be the last thing that I do, because I am planning to use the same material on the step at the side entrance to the garage and in rebuilding both sets of stairs onto our back porch. I hope to be able to order all of it at the same time.

The first task was to move the barn-style door to my workshop up and out. You see, the previous siding was T1-11, a plywood product that serves as sheathing and siding. The vinyl siding I’m installing is applied to the T1-11, and the channel around the siding is about ¾” thick. That means, for the door to slide over the siding, it has to be moved out about 1 ¼”. The door hangs from a steel track, so this isn’t a hard thing to do. However, things had to be cut, sized, leveled and nailed. Dust had to be made. Tools had to be brought out. Ladders were required. A mess was made!

Then, Maddie had to be taken outside for dog stuff.

“What did you do to my deck? Who told you you could do this? Where am I supposed to sit?”

I assured her I would fix it before 5:00.

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, I’d encourage you to join in on the fun. You can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.

Yesterday’s poll indicated a strong preference for larger images, stacked in line. I don’t think this will work in all cases, but it can work today. I put the Maddie images on top. For those of you interested in the D-I-Y aspects, you can continue to scan down.