Deckstravaganza: Screwed

Last night, we did one of the scariest parts of deck-building - we cut into our house and put up the ledger, which will serve as the anchor for the joists.

Hubs started by cutting off the siding in the spot where the ledger would go. Terrifying. I don't know why, but I kept the old siding. It's a pretty big board of weathered redwood, with lots of peeling paint, but I can see doing something crafty with it. I'm not sure what. I'm probably a hoarder.

So, remember how junky and gross the old flashing and wood was? To jog your memory, a picture. Try not to be distracted by that smug feline.

Once we had ripped off the offending planks, we had a nice blank canvas to work with.

We also had evidence of serious spider dwellings. No actual spiders, but lots of clumps of baby spider nurseries and playrooms. What a dump, you guys.

Next step was putting up the ledger. That thing is heavy. Like really heavy. And it's so low that the wife charged with holding it up while the husband in charge of temporarily securing it to their humble abode will be thankful she takes a weight training class wherein she is forced to do a million squats because holy heck, you need the quads (hammies?) of a real athlete and the maneuverability of a yogi to successfully manage this. We all survived, but I'll just say there was grunting and maybe a little whining. Maybe.In the end, we had a cat thoughtfully pondering the new ledger. Here is where the tedium began; it was time to secure this bad boy to the house. The lumber people gave us 14 anchor (lag) screws and said to space them 15 inches apart. Hubs decided this meant pairs, so we actually had to run out to get 10 more screws before we realized we had really secured this ledger. The world will end with violent winds, catastrophic volcanoes, earth-splitting quakes and zombies tearing everything apart and this ledger will still be attached to our house. The last step was caulking all those anchor screws. Trip got bored by this point.Tonight, we need to finish some caulking and put up a post or two. Friday is looking wet and miserable, so I'll take that as Mother Nature's hint that we deckbuilders need a happy hour.