Soon after we moved in to our place it became clear that what looked just like a little weird balcony on the back of our house was actually a decrepit little weird balcony. As this winter's snow began to melt and expose the places where there used to be wood we began to get a sense of the general decrepitude of the rail - and it wasn't good. As more time passed pieces of rotting wood began to fall onto the patio below. Sitting nearby when there was even a slight breeze became risky.
As obvious as it was that something needed to be done, I was a little hesitant to act before we were comfortable with our plan of action. Of course, once it became clear that my unwillingness to even consider developing a plan became was an excuse for inaction, Jeannette scoped out the supplies and forced me to agree to a plan.
On Friday after work we went to a local building supplies store and picked everything up. And because I was less than psyched about using my mitre box and saw to make all of the cuts we took advantage of the store's cut shop. For reasons that still aren't entirely clear to me (but that may have something to do with an employee's dissatisfaction with his job) we ended up getting all of our cuts done for free.
Of course, it rained most of Saturday so we had to wait until today to get going.
Fortunately, because the rotting process was so far along the task of clearing the old railing was accomplished in just a few minutes.
Before long we were on to the construction phase. And because we purchased a few metal connectors instead of relying on nail/screw based joins we were able to move along confidently and quickly (and with zero bashed fingers).
And then not long after that we were able to start adding the balusters (though our original plan had been to add them from the inside and then flip them around to the outside we decided to just keep them on the inside).
And that's basically all there was to the project. Amazingly, we were done in just a few hours (deconstruction and construction combined). As it turns out there was no reason for my hesitance - this whole process was shockingly easy and straightforward. And as Jeannette just pointed out to me, it wasn't particularly expensive (especially after we returned the extra balusters). I'm just glad my lethargy didn't cause us to try to put it off until next year.
And if you're curious to know how we passed what would have been rail construction time on Saturday it went as follows:
I installed a new cord on this lamp.
With Jeannette's assistance I installed some box shelves on the wall in Jeannette's office.
Assembled a new patio bench.
All kinds of shopping related errands (including the purchase of new sheets, plants, and deeply discounted linen clothes).
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