As I have mentioned before, I am not the handiest person around. And while I am not mechanically inclined, I am willing to help, am good at following directions and am pretty good and breaking things; all of which came in handy on my next adventure.
I am not sure if I have shared this before, but family is really into the lake, and for those of you that know me, this is not a surprise – at all. We spend as many weekends as possible at the lake and on the water. For as long as I can remember, for me, summer = the lake. And for as many weekends as possible.
I am fortunate enough that all of my immediate family share this passion. We don’t have a lake house, but a mobile home of sorts that is located permanently in the back of a campgrounds in a small Kentucky town about a mile from the water. My folks own one mobile home, and my aunt owns a second. In between the two places there is a massive deck – massive. Maybe 40 feet wide and 80 (-ish) feet long. And if you are someone in my family reading this and feel free to correct me, as you all know I am measurement-ly challenged! Anyway, the last 10 feet of the deck is not covered and takes the brunt of the sun, rain, and wind damage. It is also the oldest wood in the deck.
Last fall, when closing the places up for the season, my Dad and I spotted several boards that need to be replaced – some were rotting, some splitting, some had knots popping out. So I promised my dad I would take a day off and we would replace the bad boards – thinking this would be a quick and easy job, famous last words…
So, we head down to the lake on a dreary, unseasonably cool Monday with the intent of replacing a few boards and coming back the next day. Well, needless to say that when we go there on Monday and were doing our calculations on how much wood we needed to buy we realized that we need to replace far more than 10 boards. Essentially every single board on the back deck, the back steps, and the tops of all rails needed to be replaced and several places needed to be reinforced. Every single board. A way bigger job than quickly replacing 10 boards.
So we ripped out every single board across the back, only to find out that the support boards need to be reinforced…. of course. So after 2 days and countless trips to the hardware store, the demolition work was complete and I had to head back home with the project undone. Thankfully, my siblings, their spouses, and their kids were able to come down next weekend and knock out the project and let me tell you, the did an amazing job! I forgot to take a picture of the finished project, but I will take one next time I am down there and update the post so you can see what a fabulous job we all did!
What did I learn from this adventure?
- While I am not the handiest, I do enjoy working with my hands and seeing the tangible results and progress.
- I LOVE Atheleta; I wore a pair of their workout pants for the project and ended up tearing them and they replaced my pants for free, no questions asked! How amazing is that?!
Would I do it again? I would if the occassion arose, but I dont see that happening any time soon.
Until next time friends!
Ali
52 Weeks, 52 Adventures 