All hands on deck

Last weekend, after lovingly repairing the rotting car siding on my garage, my father took particular issue with the wacky chop job that was my deck railing. That meant one thing: it had to be repaired. NOW. Since my dad had to hit the road to milk cows, that left Brian and me to fix it. It took two trips to Mendards, five new boards of pressure-treated pine, one bottle of carpenter ant and termite killer, and Brian's muscle and skill to get the job done. I did a little bit of holding the boards in place and a lot of staying out the way.

My before and after shots are kind of lousy, but here they are regardless.

Before.
Instead of laying one solid board on top of the deck posts, the previous owner cut the top railing to angle around the posts so that the tops were flush. The wood was rotting all over the place.

During.

Brian prying some nails loose.

After.
Brian drilling the last screw in place while supporting the Bush-Cheney '04 election. Talk about multi-tasking.