I destroyed our deck with a hammer and crow bar {deck repair}
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Our porch and deck have a set of stairs that leads to our back yard and over the years, the ground has shifted under the porch creating a nightmare when it rains. When you look under our porch, there are large deep trenches that have formed and the water runs through and it happens to be seeping through the lattice as well as pushing all the mud through.
Earlier this week when I got home from the gym, I was feeling motivated and full of energy so I decided to grab a crow bar and a hammer and rip apart the old lattice so I could see just exactly what was going on under our porch.
Do you ever have those moments where you are so irritated with something, you just need to destroy it in order to make it better? ha. I have swept and power washed this area countless times and it never is clean. Every single time it rains, the mud just washes through.
The stairs have been here for over 30 years and I have asked my dad on numerous occasions to help me find a solution to prevent the mud from washing through. Of course, he has ignored me summer after summer so this year, I decided to destroy while he was at work.
Now he has to help me find a solution! ha
I was originally using a hammer to remove everything but then my grandfather said, why don’t you try a crow bar. Good idea! It worked like a charm. My grandfather watched me out the window and kept saying, “does your father know what you are doing?”
When my son got home from school I had him snap a picture of me so I could text my mom and show her the mess I made. haha. She was so excited that we were finally fixing this nightmare. Although, she didn’t realize my dad didn’t know yet.
What a mess! But it’s such a good mess. I dug out all of the mud that has been pushed down and found a friend to help me dig a trench under the deck where we added 10 inch wide pressure treated wood to prevent the mud from being pushed under the stairs. We also added a barrier under the deck with additional pressure treated wood to create a wall on the inside stair case under the deck. If the mud and water washes down now, I will take a blow torch to it and start over. haha. Just kidding.
That is the image I posted on our instagram and facebook account showing the demolition process. It was a nasty job but I am so happy that it is done. My dad got home from work later that day and saw the ripped apart deck and said, “you have go to be kidding me?” I told him now I just needed some pretty wood to nail back in place where the lattice was. He wasn’t mad for long because thankfully I got the mess cleaned up before he got home. He tends to flip out when things are ripped apart and the mess is still there. I am sure many of you have projects like this that need to be attended to, just grab a crow bar and hammer and get busy! 🙂
Meet Jessica
What started as a hobby, Jessica’s blog now has millions of people visit yearly and while many of the projects and posts look and sound perfect, life hasn’t always been easy. Read Jessica’s story and how overcoming death, divorce and dementia was one of her biggest life lessons to date.
You are so brave. I would be terrified there would be something living under there.. please don’t think less of me haha!
what did you put up instead?
We are taking down the wall and opening up the space .