Still No Deck: Deck Day # "I lost count"

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  We have had a lot of obligations that have taken time away from decking.  Also my maternity leave ended and I headed back to work.  (That was really hard and is probably a separate blog post!).

So as it stands we are still working on finishing up the deck. I am at the point that I am beginning to think we will never have a finished deck.  That is probably okay because we will never find furniture for the deck anyhow. 

Why don't people sell patio tables separately from the chairs for under 1000 bucks?  We have found a few tables we like but very few in our targeted price range.  The husband refuses to buy an outdoor table that we will only use for a few months a year that costs more that what we paid for our dinning table, agreed.

This past week we did find a couple options at Crate and Barrel and one online at Home Depot. 

Now the problem is trying to determine if they will be heavy enough to withstand our hurricane force winds we get pretty regularly.  One of our neighbors had their huge propane grill blow off of their deck last year during a particularly forceful wind storm.  We would like to make sure our table does not act like a sail and shoot straight into the neighbor's house.

So back to the state of the deck.  Last time we checked in the husband was convinced that he was going to have to redo the stairs which meant taking out one of the big rocks.  After a backyard chat with some of the neighborhood dudes a new plan was formed.  With a few off-label adjustments to the placement of the railing on the stairs we get back a few more inches on the walkable width space.  Yay, no redo!

As it stands all of the posts for the rails are in and bolted. 

Cutting the railing pieces began yesterday.  This is not fun.  It involves a reciprocating saw cutting through iron too close to fingers for my comfort.  The husband maintains their is no risk to fingers but I still hold my breath.  What makes it really fun is the saw bounces around a tad as it is making the cuts.  The result is that you get a few nicks in the railing.  These will have to be treated with rustoleum to prevent rust forming.  Not a huge deal but still a pain.

What you are looking at is 1 of 10 panels of railing installed (no post caps yet).  The goal for today is to get a couple more done but with temperatures getting close to 100 today we may retreat to the cool air conditioning. 

That sounds like more fun than decking...let's do that.

I am now starting to realize why the deck is not finished yet.