Practice makes perfect....

Living rent free at my mum's place as we diligently save for a home deposit is wonderful. We're one week away from opening our next "milestone wine. So when Mum asked both Steve and I to help build a deck she's been wanting to construct for years we jumped at the chance. Not only as an attempt to thank Mum for letting us stay, but it's also our very first attempt at renovating and building something substantial!

The deck is to fill a void under the house that enters onto the backyard. It's always been an empty space that's been screaming out for attention.

It's very handy that Steve is a mechanical engineer - for starters, Steve designed the deck and had drawings done up at his work. He wanted to try a timber and steel combination... something a little like this...

Steve got all the preparations ready for this weekend - ordering the steel, timber and had the steel cleats laser cut. The only problem... we don't own any tools. So off to the store we went first thing on Saturday morning. It's been something Steve has been desperate to begin, I on the other hand - not that fussed!

We ended up buying a welder and assorted accessories including welder protective gear, an angle grinder, a die grinder, tool box, paint, primer, paintbrushes, rollers, sandpaper and probably a lot more - it got to the point when I could no longer shop for tools. I suggest Bunnings and Trade Tools should have a "lady seat" much like the "man chair" in the change rooms of clothing stores. 

Mum was around for the weekend to help me out with painting the steel poles and steel bearers while Steve cut down and welded the bearers ready for installation next weekend.

We managed to prime all the poles except one due to the height (we may need to buy a big ladder- yay more shopping!). We got one coat of the Dulux gloss black done and it looks fantastic. It's so strange to see how much of a difference just a coat of paint makes to a space. 

Steve has cut down and welded two of the four cleats. He says his welds are getting better and better each go. And as someone who has absolutely no idea what a good or bad weld looks like, I was just happy to celebrate in his success!

Magic, right?!

I'm pretty proud of what we've done so far but I'll be honest we're learning a lot by error. 

A couple of things I've deduced so far:

*don't paint above your head cause paint will drip into your eye

* paint in your eye really hurts and makes your eyelashes stick together

* measure twice, cut once isn't just a catchy phrase!

And I'm sure they'll be many more things to learn before the project is complete.

We have a public holiday on Wednesday so we'll be back on the tools.