My parents came to visit a few weekends ago, and my dad immediately got to work with M on the start of the rear balcony demolition. All four of our parents have stepped up many times on various projects on this house – and even though they were in their fifties when we started and are in their seventies now – they still are up for anything.
Railings off, and then they worked on getting the starter boards out on the deck. The following weekend, M removed the rest of the ipe and dismantled the stair. We had a heat index of 110, so outdoor work was pretty limited that weekend, but the space was starting to clear out.
This past weekend M completed the demo on this level, and I worked to sort through all of the river rock we had along the edge of the porch. After 22 years there was a lot of dirt and debris buildup under there, so the rock sorting took about 7-8 hours total, and I filled 9 buckets of clean rock.
M continued removing hardware and then started removing all the dirt from the area and relocating it to the rear of the yard.
I cleaned up the salvaged wood, which had lots of cobwebs on the underside.
And I widened the path in the backyard between our various piles of building materials so that we can have better access to the project. Yes, we keep it really classy back here. Doesn’t everyone keep a pile of old bricks and a washtub in their backyard?
The rear yard is pretty dismal. The neighbors in the newly rehabbed units next door now have a parking pad in the rear, with a rather underwhelming retaining wall. This will eventually go away when we build our garage. But for now, it is what it is. We added some fill behind their wall, and Monday night M added some grass seed to keep it in place.
Next up – scaffolding, upper balcony demo, and roof shoring! This is going to be the BEST before-shot ever.
