Organized

I love the way Dave works.  He takes some time before the job to do some prep work that makes the rest of it so organized, easy and efficient.  It is how he built our house, how he writes a talk, how he does his job, everything.  We have been pressing hard to get the last few things that need to be done on our house.  A few weeks ago he got up early and spent almost 2 hours getting some jigs made.  We were getting our railings done.  After breakfast he took us all out to the garage and walked us through the whole process.

He had a stopper on the end of the saw so all the boards were the exact length with out needing to measure each time.  Really speed that up.

There was a box with a nail in the correct spot so we could just tap and make a nail hole.

A sanding station that held the boards in.

For the top and bottom rail he marked the first one, then we slid it over to a nail and kept drilling.  Slid to nail and drilled.  They were all perfectly measured.

We zipped through all of it so quickly.  By 11 we were ready to start putting it all together and painting.

We had a blast and traded jobs so we could try everything. 

Dave worked on routering the top railing and Blake set in all the screws.

After lunch it was a two man job.  Cora took the kids in to swim as Dave and I finished.  He had it all fit and painted by night fall.  We let it dry Sunday and hung it Monday after work.  It was awesome.  He had such a good system set up that early Monday before work, he moved a few jigs and rearranged just a few things.  Our back deck was a little different design.  The kids and I did it all and stained them while he was at work.  When he got home we put up the front and started on the back.  By Wednesday it was all done.  We are pretty proud of ourselves.  It looks fantastic.  My lawn is coming along nicely also.  There is still a lot of bare patches and some weeds, but we will keep spraying and it will fill in.  Nice to have a sorta lawn.

And the front railings.  I love it.  Can anyone spy Leah.  :)