Deck update #2

Continuing on from the last post...

The yard sat untouched for another very long time.  (are you sensing the theme here?)

Then one day, apparently I had nagged enough and all of the right phone calls had been made.  I believe I was in the kitchen when I heard, "ohhhh emmmm jeeeeee.  omg.  OMG!" come from a certain teenage daughter who was sitting on the couch.  This is what she saw out the front window:

The day had finally arrived, and the people had finally arrived.  Work was really really going to start happening to rebuild my deck.  

I was sort of in shock, and needed to take lots of pictures to make sure I wasn't just dreaming it.

Since the old footings were basically little pieces of wood tapped into the ground a few inches and not secured with anything, we decided to go full out and do everything the right way.  The system we used for the footings this time are called helical piles.  They are basically a huge screw that gets screwed right into the ground.  No digging, no pouring cement around them, and they are probably 10 feet long.  I don't think these suckers are budging.

They had a special attachment on the arm of the bobcat that hooked right on to the end of the helical pile and they screwed them right in!

All the way down to about a foot or two sticking out of the ground for the deck to attach to.

Once the footings were in place, our favorite landscapers, ZR Ziemski Landscaping (Zach, you need a website for me to link to!) came back to do some more prep work. 

They tore out all of my old shrubs that were 20 years old, overgrown, and not really taken care of as they should have been.  I was a little sad to lose my flowering crab apple tree, but it was necessary for the plans we have brewing.

I love seeing all these people working on making my yard look pretty again!

They also routed some downspouts and added some underground drains that will keep the water away from the house and my new landscaping.

Out with the old, in with the new (someday!)

They prepped the new deck spot with good weed barrier (nothin' worse than weeds growing up through your deck, amiright???) and a huge load of rocks so it's nice and pretty.

Hooray for progress!

Ahh, just looks so clean, doesn't it?  Well, I mean if you look past all the dirt.  I just love having all of the weeds out of there, and having it ready for the next steps!

Progress, people! 

More to come...

XOXOX

NH