Project Complete
We did it. It just didn’t make sense to wait for some future opportunity to replace the top boards of the railings. We were too close to the end to let the project hang unfinished for any length of time.
I pulled screws out of the old boards yesterday morning and installed the new boards in the afternoon. When I lifted the first board off the railing, we made a startling discovery.
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I’m glad we waited this late in the season because, unknown to us, there were a lot of wasp nests hanging underneath the boards. Our recent freeze rendered the nests vacant.
Here is just a portion of the screws pulled to remove the railing boards:
Even though it’s just a small step in the overall deck refurbishment project, the large number of screws take a significant amount of time to extract.
The grand finale that put an exclamation point on the whole job for us was getting the leftover lumber off the driveway and into storage in the hay shed.
Done and done.
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Relative Something 
Congratulations!! A job well done!!
Barry
October 28, 2019 at 7:29 am
Thank you. Most significant to me is that we actually got it DONE!
johnwhays
October 28, 2019 at 7:35 am
Well done! Question: what did you do with the old boards? I imagine them re-purposed in some place or another. Stabilizers for one trail or another?
wtbell
October 28, 2019 at 7:05 am
Good question. They are stacked in the empty hay shed along with the leftover new wood. I’m planning to build a bridge over an eroding drainage ditch and will use a combination of the old cedar and new pressure treated boards. It will be big (long) and heavy, so I will probably try to build it in place. It would be difficult to move if built anywhere else.
johnwhays
October 28, 2019 at 7:14 am
Congrats! Great accomplishment! And think of the money you saved😘
Mary
October 28, 2019 at 6:53 am
Thanks! Yes, the lowest formal bid we received was over 15K! Now I understand why. That was a lot of wood and screws.
johnwhays
October 28, 2019 at 7:02 am