It’s been a long time coming, but things are finally starting to coalesce.
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I peeked out back at noon and saw almost half the deck boards had been laid.
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When the husband got home at 5:00pm, two thirds were done.
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Apparently with the help of a wooden mallet.
But because nothing ever goes smoothly here, it was then we learned the contractor had misjudged the width of the boards and would be two short at the end of the project. And since this is a special color no one keeps in stock, we’ll have to live with an unfinished deck for at least two weeks while we wait for the order to come in.
Sigh…
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But if I take a photo from this angle, I can pretend all is well.
As you know, the state of Maine decided to dig out the ditch in front of our house… even though we wanted to fill it in.
The head mucky muck said they would call my husband and give him fair warning when the crew would arrive so he could plan to be here during the process.
You know where I’m going with this right?
On the very day my husband ended his (unhappy) retirement and went back to work at the office?
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Yeah.
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Bright and early at 6:45am, with no warning whatsoever.
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I scrambled to get dressed and went out to talk to the crew, trying to explain the problems we’d been having. No one cared. Their instructions were to dig out a ditch and that’s what they were going to do.
I told them about the temporary mailbox situation and said it was too heavy for me to move, but could they please drag it out of the way when they shored up the sides of the ditch.
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As you can see…
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That did not happen.
They went right around it.
WTF?
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It was a noisy, dirty day at Casa River and I knew all they were doing was making the ditch worse. The carefully tended grass on top?
Gone.
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But look, they spread some dry seed.
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Which they then dislodged with a leaf blower.
Again… WTF?
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In the bottom of the ditch, they spread a rolled line of hay like fiber.
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What that’s supposed to do I have no clue.
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They dug and they swept, but if you look closely they did nothing to build up the sides of the ditch or the top which is what caused the caving in problem in the first place.
At the end of day four, which turned out to be an 11 hour day – our contractor arrived at 7:15am and left at 6:15pm- this was the result.
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Five deck boards.
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Five.
Count ‘em… five.
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Three ‘picture frame’ and two others.
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After 11 hours… at $55 and hour.
Let me do the math for you… that’s $605. Which works out to $121 per board. Granted there was a lot of measuring and cutting around the existing railing posts, and at $96 per board we’re glad he’s precise and doesn’t waste material, but wow.
Sorry Mick, but in this instance… time is definitely not on our side.
River's world..... 