Last week we borrowed a truck from some friends to pick up wood for our deck railing-- insurance underwriters would like a railing on the deck, and we'd like to get it done.
We had such a plan, too-- we had braces for the 4X4 posts, handrails with routered holes for stiles, pre-cut stiles... Seriously. We had it all figured out.
First things first, Adam tried to put together one section on Friday and it was a disaster. He was there for hours and only finished one (of six) panels.
Saturday, while he worked, I tried my hand at it.
The main problem Adam had was that some stiles were shorter than others and fell out of their slots. So I dry-fitted a section and saw what he was talking about.
But I'd lined out all the stiles, and they were identical in length... which meant the problem was a warp in the longer handrails. Sigh. That's harder to deal with.
I tried every method of putting them together, I even had an extra pair of hands to help. I finally settled on a method of loosely taking each end together and wedging the stiles in one at a time, and screwing what I needed to as I went to tighten things up.
It was tedious, but it was coming along.
After I got one put together successfully, I swapped helpers.
One of the things I love about being in a new house is watching everything bloom in spring. These bradford pear trees are gorgeous (if stinky). I'm still waiting to see the fig trees and curly willow come to life.
Anyway, Adam came over after work, and we got finished with all but one section. And then we decided to put in a post and see how it went.
It didn't go well. The wooden railings were far too big and bulky and heavy for that deck. Just way too much.
So we're on to metal railings. They're lighter-weight and less unweildy. Here's hoping they work. I have to drive a bit to get to a hardware store that carries enough of them...
The panels we put together, however, will find new homes; the stairs inside are very, very low, and I worry about going over the side, and the dogs going over the side... So we'd planned on putting some sort of barrier up. These will work nicely for that. Or they might work for stair rails... or for back porch rails. They'll find a nice home.
Meanwhile, I've got to patch some dry-wall in the carriage house... among other things-- get my step-daughter's room painted. She insists on something close to TARDIS blue. Decisions, decisions.
Thankfully, it's spring break and I can hopefully squeeze in some work and moving.
