First solo weekend since April

I had to keep rolling on the deck project this past weekend since this is taking way longer than anticipated. To my dismay, I had to stop at Menards on the way up to return lumber and buy more. My list included a few 16 ft 2x4s. However, my truck is way to small to handle that overhang, so I had to open my back window and slide them through to the cab. Here a live dash cam photo below.

Lumber in my face

After leaving work late and spending hours messing around at Menards, I finally caught the 9:30 pm ferry. So I didn't do anything on the island Friday night other than unload. Bright and early Saturday morning I started on the railing framing.

By early evening, I had finished the railing framing and it looked like this...

Sunday morning, I started on the balusters (spindles). I had to figure out how to space these properly. I built a jig using a few modified 2 x 4 scrap pieces. This created a block spacing template that I can use to hang the balusters perfect every time. By Sunday later afternoon, I had the back of the deck balusters finished.

Here is where I left off on Sunday evening before I headed to the ferry dock.

Long side view

Full frontal

Next steps:

• Finish balusters
• Install top railing cap
• Start on the stairs

Kids back in school

The kids went back to school earlier this week so this was a true weekend only trip. Bonnie and lil' Neil headed out sometime on Friday afternoon. I got home early from work and waiting for Anna and Sophie to get home from school before we headed out around 4 pm.

Here are my girls on the ferry early Friday evening.

Sophie and Anna on the ferry

The goal for the weekend was to install the deck railing posts. I started on the layout bright and early Saturday morning. I did get some help from the little man as seen in the photo below. 

My boy

By Sunday afternoon, I had layed-out, cut, drilled and bolted 28 railing posts. Here is the finished product.

Posts done

Miscellaneous photos from different views. The stairs you see in the photos are just temporary.

View from the street

Saturday night, Bonnie and me got a chance to head downtown (thanks to Anna for baby sitting the crew) to see our favorite Kelleys Island band - "Almost Famous". They always rock the Caddy Shack.

Bonnie and "Almost Famous"

Early Sunday evening we had to make a mad dash to pack-up and bug-out. Here is the little man on the Seaway Marina beach waiting for the ferry.

Seaway beach

Next steps:

• Finish deck railing
• Install spindles (balusters)
• Layout the stairs (3 sets!)

Milestone achieved!

Ok, I realize I have been posting so much about the deck project lately. Apologies for the lack of fun fresh content, but I have been working tirelessly on this for months. Finally, on Sunday afternoon I finished up the last of the wrap-around decking...

Decking finished!

Here is our little guy with another island salamander. He seems to find some new indigenous creature every week. This boy has had some fun this summer!

Neil with island salamander

Bonnie and me were lucky to have Anna willing and able to babysit for us. We went out both weekend nights together. Here is cool photo...

Bonnie and me

Ok, back to deck...

After laying down about 10 more rows of deck (~50 boards), I had to cut the ALL the hanging joists flush using the circular saw. This took a while to measure, mark and cut square. Chris Arnold helped me hang the end boards (the last of the 2 x 10s thankfully!). Then I layed down the final decking early Saturday evening.

Bob Cisar came by on Sunday morning to finish the cut ends using a router to make the deck ends look like a factory finish. Well done sir.

Here is a photo looking at the back of the cottage. It was nice to get the grill off the ground as well.

Next steps:

• Start on deck railing and stairs

All Deck, All Day, Every Day...

Ok, this blog post is dedicated to the deck project...

No joke, I spent 10 days straight working on the deck. Some days just for a few hours and some days from early morning until it got dark (or when Bonnie made me stop)

I like to start my blog posts with really "engaging" photos. The idea it to keep the reader interested right from the start. We all know, nobody reads anything anyway. All we do it look for photos and something to click on. So with that, here is the deck project where I left it Sunday night before leaving the island.

looking good!

I am seriously happy with the progress so far. I'll share some photos and dialog on how I got there.

Saturday morning, I picked up where I left off on July 18th, with the continued framing of the joists and the base structure. I still had (30-40) 2 x 10 x 12s left on the pile, but I knew it would probably not be enough to finish this step.

Sunday morning, I had to go off island to the Sandusky Home Depot to pick up more boards and screws. I was back at it by 1:00 pm on Sunday to finish up all the wrap-around/joist framing from the middle of the cottage to back past the sliding door. Then, I had to re-mediate all the loose ends that got warped by too much sun exposure and nothing to tie it all together (for the last 3 weeks). I still only have 4 ends boards to hang on the finished edge. So totally happy to be almost done with 2 x 10s. Bob Cisar, helped by installing about 80 hurricane ties for the joists. This deck is very solid.

Here are some photos of the progress and the kids hanging out.

Monday or Tuesday (I can't remember) I finished up all inter-bracing to keep the joists from moving. Then I FINALLY got to start decking. This is the "high feedback" portion of the job. Where you actually get to see the finished deck top as you go. I started on the 8 ft section along the cottage to get a full board. Then I worked left until I reached the end... approx 24 ft. I would take measurements about every 4 boards to make sure that I was square to the cottage and the deck. This is crazy critical, because you do not want to end up with uneven decking at the ends. It would look very crappy and then you are stuck with it forever! So, needless to say, I ended up on the far left perfectly square.

So funny, when I was just getting rolling, probably 10 deck boards in, Bonnie already put the Adirondack chairs on the mini 5 ft section of deck.

Here are the finished photos of the front 8' x 24' deck section.

The next day JR came over to help me get started on the first long run along the cottage to meet the wrap around in the back. This allowed me to start on the next straight run of 12 footers along the back of the cottage. For the next day or so, I just worked the same decking system as in the front, but I was using 12 ft boards and working to the right, measuring every 4 boards until the end. Again, ended up perfectly square to the cottage and deck. FYI - those are. Please ignore the temporary movable stairs shown in the photo below as they will not be in that location when finished.

The next few days/sessions, I worked on my way on the 48 ft runs (with seams) along the cottage to the right side. This was slow going because now I had to make cuts on every deck board to meet the joists properly. My plan was to keep rolling until I ran out of deck boards. Some material had been sitting on the driveway since late May. It was high time to get these installed.

On Sunday evening (the following week), I had officially run out of usable deck boards. You can see in the photo below how much lumber is left over (not much) from about 6 big loads/trips. Getting material to the island is such a colossal pain-in-the-azz, it felt great to get so much done.

So this is where I left it. I have about 10 more rows of approx 5 decks boards each row. Unfortunately, I will be making ANOTHER lumber purchase for next weekend to wrap this up.

You can see the size and scale of the deck to the cottage in the photos below. Overall, the layout is great and really adds so much outdoor living space.

Funny side note for you...

I am 1/2 through my third 25 lb bucket of deck screws. Based on information provided on the label, that's about 5,000 decks screws used so far for structural support and the partial deck top.

FIVE THOUSAND screws and I'm not close to being done yet! That's friggin' crazy!

Bonus item!

While Bonnie was up at the cottage this week, she sanded off all of the unsightly stamped labels. Nice work.

Next steps:

• Finish decking!

Island fest

This weekend, it was time to hang with the guys. It was Island Fest and the weather forecast was all good.

I started out Thursday night by seriously loading down my truck with way too heavy lumber. Because Menard's is such a pain-in-the-azz to get lumber from, it takes sooo much time to stop there and it just adds hours to the island commute, I bought (40) - 2' x 10' x 12' from Home Depot in North Olmsted. Seemed like a great idea. You can't tell by this photo, but I was bottomed out pretty bad and the back tires were squashed. When I did get to the highway, the maneuverability was terrible. Floating all over the road. Anyway, with fingers crossed, I did make it as the last vehicle on the 9:00 pm ferry leaving Marblehead.

All loaded down and ready to head north west...

Bad idea

For the record, when building this cottage, there is an enormous amount of material that needs to be transported up to the beloved island. I have spent countless hours at Lowes, Home Depot and Menards. I am extremely happy to be getting near the end of the BIG projects and then can bring up less stuff every weekend. That being said, I will still have several more trips to get this deck project finished!

Friday morning, I had conference calls all day until late afternoon. So around 2:30 pm I finally got outside to start working on the deck. Around 6:30 pm, Rob was on the ferry and ready to get the party started.

50% done with the joists

I think I have approximately 40 to 50 (2' x 10') joists left. I hope this is enough to finish the wrap-around to the back. It will be close, I think I still may need 1 or 2 more boards.

After picking up Rob at the ferry, I got a totally random text from my old friend Lenny. It's been a few years since we have spoken or hung out. He was on the island for his birthday. So we met the whole crew down at Dockers on the water. Fun night that turned into a rough Saturday morning. Brad finally showed up on Saturday afternoon to join me and Rob.

Rob strumming the guitar

Saturday night at the Caddyshack we got to see one of the best bands to play on Kelleys, "Almost Famous" from Cleveland. We went to high school with the bass player and we always try to catch their show when we can. As usual, they had the place rockin' all night.

Almost Famous

Next steps:

• Finish the deck joists...

Stenger Family Weekend - Let's do this!

Last weekend, we hosted the extended Stenger family - Al, Lori, Andy, Emily and Tessa. My mom joined us as well for good times had by all. The weather was nice and we had some big fun.

Here is a nice shot of "the fam" from the KI Cantina - enjoying some fresh margaritas and mojitos.

Stenger family at the KI Cantina

Earlier on Saturday, we stopped at the West Bay for food, drinks and to watch a band. 

Andy, me and Al - West Bay Inn

You know there is no way I can be on the island and not do some type of work on the cottage. I had a vacation day on Friday, so I got started bright and early with hanging some deck joists. Saturday morning, Uncle Al helped me out a little to get things squared-up. In the photo below, I think the joists are about 30% done.

Front deck - joists

Front deck

Saturday night, Bonnie brought out a Chinese lantern that everyone in the family signed with a Sharpie before launching it into the evening sky.

Chinese lantern

Sunday morning a light rain came and stayed all day. We had to pack-up the crew and get everyone on the ferry. I had to load up some of the unneeded deck material from Menard's that I ended up not using. For the record, returning material is a huge hassle at Menard's. I am considering just buying the rest of my stuff from Home Depot because they are easier to deal with, although the prices are slightly higher.

Next steps:

• Finish deck joists!

4th of July

Finally we got some nice weather for the long holiday weekend. I headed up to the island on Thursday night to meet Bonnie and the kids.

I brought up Anna's queen bed that we got from Amie and Scott since they recently moved and bought a new one. This completes the set and is the last piece of major furniture needed other than a few small things here and there. I think her room looks great.

Anna's new bed

Here is photo of my baby girls being silly sisters.

Anna and Sophie - sister love

Saturday night (4th of July) we went out for some food and to see a band at the Caddy Shack, before going to watch the fireworks from the West Bay Inn.

Kids - Caddy Shack

Cottage progress continues, slowly but surely...

We (me and Winston) finished setting the back deck posts on Friday and let them set-up overnight while we started on the front beam installation.

Front deck beams started

Saturday, Winston helped me with the side deck beams. Then on Sunday and Monday I finished hanging the the beams by myself. So far, so good.

Back deck beams done

Monday afternoon, Zig stopped by to fix a piece of cracked vinyl siding. Luckily, I had several spare pieces I was storing down in the crawlspace. Zig popped out the bad piece and replaced it in like 5 minutes! wow, big thanks Z!

Bob Cisar and Zig

Next weekend is the big "Stenger Family" weekend we have been planning for a while, so I think there will be more partying than work going on.

Next steps:

• Start hanging deck joists