About 35 years ago, Mom and Dad bought their property, and did some MAJOR landscaping, using redwood to build a giant deck, and plant barriers all around their house; and well? The age is starting to show. I didn’t get the money “before” shot (I’m still struggling with that one!) so I’ll start with the first repair that was made.

The boards that frame the deck were a bit warped, and pulling away from each other, so Sam ripped the molding off, and started in on the wall that was also pulling away from the cement that is in front of my Dad.

They reinforced the edge of the deck with a 2×4, drilled pilot holes for the edge of the wall and attached it to the cement using some cement screws,

And re-attached the molding. Viola!

Next on the list were some supports that had rotted out, so we removed some boards to look underneath.

There were only a few supports that were totally shot in this section:

So we got some reinforcements in there:

This whole time, by the way, my main job was de-nailing all of the boards we pulled up. Some had rotted out wood still attached on the nails:

I’m pretty sure I removed over 250 nails. Here’s a great view of my job site:

Next was a corner section under a bench seat that had rotted out underneath:

Again, we added some supports, and replaced the decking:

When Sam replaces those deck boards, then he did an 80% fix on the flower box that was being pushed out by the dirt:

Voila! This deck is getting sturdy now!

Lastly, there was a corner on the upper deck that had rotted out as well. This area had been wired to install a hot tub years ago… but my mom couldn’t get past her anxiety about a potential neighborhood child wandering into their backyard and making their way unattended to the hot tub, so one was never installed.

Sam and Dad put some supports in this section, and even had to raise the flower box up 3″ to make it level again:

And with a quick re-trimming of the boards, they were crewed back in place!

Hooray!!! The repair job is complete!

Next on the list: power wash and then stain. This old Redwood is going to get a face lift.

Stay tuned!

With Love, Erika Nora