No I am not on strike (although sometimes it is a tempting alternative to installing 700 sq ft of laminate flooring – I am not as young as I used to be and my knees are complaining). I have in fact been installing pickets in the railing around the deck. The cottage is definitely looking finished now!
I had a bit of fun with the design as the posts have to clear the edge of the concrete deck, but thanks to the Uli and Darryl at the CRD building office for their advice on how to achieve that (ABS pipe and very long lag bolts, if you are interested….).
So another trip to Windsor Plywood to get a few hundred feet of dressed cedar in various shapes and sizes and 100 or so 4 ft pickets to finish – not to forget a couple of very big boxes of screws to fasten is all together with. There were a few challenges - like the fact that the deck is 6ft of the ground – rather than working up a ladder I ended up building it all from on the deck. This required a lot of interesting contortions and left me with some unusual aches and pains! Also the fact that one day it was -6 C outside didn't help much – that is the first time I have worked wearing 2 pairs of trousers, 2 pairs of gloves, 2 hats etc.
It was all worth it in the end though – the railings look great (in fact I keep thinking that they look too good for me to have built them!), and this was the last really major thing before I go for final sign off! Oh, and it means I can't knock my table saw off the deck like I did a few months ago – amazingly it still works after a 6 ft drop (and a bit of rebuilding) – but that's another story…