Me, before the hair was pulled out.......
Our house, just like any house, sometimes needs repair. Romeo is great at "handyman" repairs. We've never ever ever paid anyone to do anything to our house with the exception of a plumber friend of mine that replaced a toilet in the master bath ~ which turned out to be one hell of a job. He does maintenance on everything, including the roof. Has replaced at least 2 hot water heaters. Shuts down the evap cooler himself, when most folks pay someone to do what Romeo would call "a shitty job". He is meticulous and likes to do it right. Keep this in mind.
For a couple of years now we knew that some of the boards on our small second story deck were experiencing dry rot. Not surprising in our climate. 90+% of our fences are made from cinder block or brick, which was quite the novelty to me when I first noticed them in El Paso. This summer was Romeo's first ever "teacher summer" ~ he was off from June 25 until August 3. He intended to tackle the deck this summer, but because of a snafu with his contract, he wasn't paid. So, he didn't make much headway with the deck, other than to remove boards a bit at a time. I wasn't really happy with this development because the backyard looks like a war zone. Plus, the old rotted out deck did provide some shade from the setting sun. Sadly, our backyard is on the west side of the house, something I will keep in mind if we ever sell this one and move.
This weekend, he announced he would be removing the rest of the boards. It was pretty noisy. I was trying my best to ignore it while watching the semi-finals of the tennis tournament in Cincinnati. After an hour or so, he comes in and tells me that the column that holds up the southwestern side of the deck is wobbly. "It might have to come down," he says. I told him I wish he wouldn't, and for about 15 minutes we have a rather loud argument where he accuses me of not believing him and I counteract that with that's not the point. At any rate, I told him to do what he thinks needs to be done. Some short time after that, there's a loud noise, and he comes in to tell me that he dented the grill when a board came down. It's not too bad, he says, it's just the lid. No problem, I say ~ it's still usable if not a little battle weary.
Another short period of time later, there's an even louder noise, rather like the house is falling down. Where he comes in to tell me that the column wasn't at all supported, and when he removed the last board the entire thing (probably 8 ft tall) crashed on to the grill. This is where I started pulling out the hair. Of course, I'm thankful it didn't fall toward the house (oh so thankful!!). I suppose my first thought was why didn't you move the grill somewhere else, but our backyard is very small, so there were limited options. I mentioned that I didn't think we were going to have fajitas for dinner, but he assured me the grill still works, it just took off the side panel. "Once we get a new grill cover (the original was destroyed in the crash), it won't even be noticeable!". Sigh.......
So, now not only do we have a huge stack of boards from the deck, there's a sad column laying on the ground as well. I wonder how long it will take before we actually have a deck again.
Love, 365
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