Sometime in July it started to become apparent that my dad was going to get to come home. He was getting a lot stronger and he didn't need medical care anymore. The biggest factor keeping him in the care center was that he couldn't walk. This has been very very hard on my dad and frustrating but his body is still making progress. One thing that needed to happen before he could come home was we needed a deck off of my parents front porch.
Aaron has been so amazing the entire time my dad has been sick. Like so AMAZING! He has done so much to help my parents. I am so grateful for all of the sacrifices he has made as well as his wife, Jacklyn. Aaron was the mastermind behind the deck. He had some help from my dads brother Pete and a few others but he is the one who drew up the plans and saw the project through. It was a lot of work and learning but it was fun to get to see him accomplish such an amazing thing.
We debated about just throwing a deck together out of supplies from my dads barn but in the end we decided to buy composite decking and make it nice. I am so glad we did. This is what we started with.:
Then we went to Home Depot to buy the supplies and that took like three hours.....not even joking.
Pete and Aaron decided the best thing would be to build the deck over the cement porch. Here is the progress after Day 1:
The composite is so nice.
We loaded everything on my dads trailer and just pulled it out of the barn every time we worked on it. That worked great and made the set up and clean up really easy. It was KILLING my dad that there was a project going on at his house while he was stuck in bed. He helped a lot with the planning but he was really bummed he couldn't be there building. He loves stuff like this.
Aaron even used the tractor to level the ground.
I painted the red door. It is so pretty!!! And I painted the trim on the house. That was one of my summer projects.
Ben came and helped one day as well as Aaron's friend Dan.
There are so many nails in each board that goes on the deck. I helped as well and I was shocked at how many nails went in each board to ensure that it was sturdy.
Building the frame was definitely the hardest part.
Finally we got to lay some of the actual decking. It was so exciting.
I had to sit on it and admire our work.
Look at the adorable wreath I found for my moms door. It is so cute!
It really probably only took a little over a week to build the deck but because Aaron also has a job and it was so hot we didn't work on it everyday. I had to go home before it was finished. I also accidentally backed into the deck and split one of the boards on the frame. Who does that???? My car was loaded to come back to Utah and it was after midnight, I just needed to back my car up closer to the house. Seems like an easy thing but I nicked the corner of the deck and split one of the boards. I have not been that mad at myself in a long time. I was so MAD!!! I shed some tears over that as well. It was so frustrating. Luckily with the help of Bishop Trinnamon it was an easy fix, but the hard part was that I had to leave the mistake for Aaron to deal with and he was already doing so much. Definitely not one of my finer moments.
The deck still needs the rest of the railing put up and the stuff you put on the bottom to cover the blocks but it turned out beautifully.
It is going to be a great addition to my parents house.
Here is my dad already for dialysis sitting on the porch built for him!
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