Memorial Day Weekend

Leah with the wrench!

Before I start writing about us, I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all our troops, veterans and those who have given so much in order for us to have our freedom. Thanks for your service and thank you to those that are serving, I thought about you all weekend and how lucky we are to have people like you, sacrificing so much so that we may have the freedoms we have today.

Erik and I are linking the location of the existing deck with the dining room- we got a french door to replace the existing window. So we got started early Saturday morning with the Auger rental.

Later on around 1pm we had a very nice surprise during our digging of the holes for the sono tubes....Luke and Tracy came by. Luke got right into the project mixing the concrete and pouring the footings. Tracy did a beer run ( which is pretty funny, since she is 8 1/2 months pregnant!) It was such a huge help. We really appreciate it!

So we dug the post holes with the Auger- they needed to be 4 feet down. Which

is safe from the frost line, if they were higher the possibility o

f them shifting due to the freeze and thaws we get up here in Maine We made 6 holes for footings. On the 2nd hole we got the Auger stuck and I had to go back and get the wrench from the hardware store- it was as big as me. I was kind of embarrassed walking out of the store with it.

Pics are from Sunday. Unfortunately, I didn't capture Saturday, since it was pretty intense and I had forgotten to buy batteries for the camera.

This image is Sunday Morning- starting to frame

Sunday, we started laying the decking. It's a meranti- a type of mahogany. It is hard as a rock and you have to pre-drill each hole and the nails are freaking tiny and expensive- so I was under the deck gathering ANY that fell down through. Erik cut the planks, sealed the ends and drilled the holes, while I came from behind and nailed then down. The wood is so hard that it eats through drill bits too, we used 6 today ! Luckily, Erik had worked with it before, so he stocked up. I'll upload some of those photos later- it was dark before I thought of it.

Panorama of the back of the house. Its a little skewed so use your imagination- it doesn't really look like a "fun house".

Pre- Decking Sunday night