The back decks, they be a wreck.  Beneath the top deck the previous owner didn’t bother to put any siding between the joists.  He left the underlying particle board exposed and just painted it to match the house.  Between weather and the hot tub on the deck above it took a lot of abuse.  I opted to run flashing (leftover from what was removed on the deck above) down each and then cover with lap siding.

Flashing up.  See the massive post next to the steps?  That’s new too.  Temporary box at the base, filled with cement.  There was no railing on this side of the deck.  We’re remedying that too.

Running lag bolts in to secure post.

Siding up and ready for paint – if we can ever choose the colors.

Installed a railing and putting up cedar slats for privacy.  Once they’re run all the way up we’re going to affix privacy fabric to this side of them.  Our hope is that it’ll let in some light while obscuring the view into (and out of) the neighbors dining room and kitchen windows, which are a unnervingly close.

Other side.  I’m still trying to decide whether to finish out the lower with the traditional wooden slats as on the other sides of the deck or to pull all that mess out and run cabling.  I think money will be the deciding factor.

Tools I’m wishing I had:  Chop saw, router+table, band saw.  In time…

Oh, the things the uninitiated don’t think about when buying a foreclosure.  Like, do you know where the sewage clean out is?  How about the whole house shutoff?  Does the irrigation system work?  How?

Here are the answers as applicable to us:

• Where’s the clean out?  Why, the previous owner poured the cement front stoop on top of it!
• Where’s the whole house shutoff?  Buried far beneath the irrigation system stuff.  Like, truly buried.  In earth. So it’s a rusted bad gamble (plumber quote: “Don’t touch it.  Ever.”)
• Does the irrigation system work?  Sure.  It does.  There’s no city required double check on it though.  And the fence company managed to hide some of the heads behind (and one actually beneath) the fence.

We started down this watery path because the water heater is as old as the house, and struggled to provide more than one short shower’s worth of hot water.  Unacceptable in a town as cold as Bend.  We dug up half the yard hunting for the shutoff only to finally discover it in the aforementioned area beneath the front irrigation controls.  We opted to dig out all around that and the irrigation in order to save labor charges because we were clearly gonna need a plumber.

One of the fun things about living next to an extinct (dormant?) volcano is that you’re atop nothing but lava rock.

Lots and lots of big, heavy lava rock.  This is why a rock drill is a default tool for the fencing companies around here.

So the plumbing guys came out and told us that in order to meet code we needed a new whole house shutoff, a whole house double check valve (which we lacked), and a separate double check for the irrigation.  We put them to work on the shutoff and main double check, only to find out after the fact that the city of Bend is putting in double checks on every house in the city limits on their own dime (well, on our taxes), and that we didn’t have to do it ourselves.

The plumbing company is assuring us they’re going to “make it right,” whatever that means.  We shall see.  In the meantime I worked with the plumber they sent out (he was good stuff, and none of the double check mess is his fault) and armed with the knowledge gained from that I’m going to attempt to tackle my irrigation woes on my own.

Oh, we also put in a low rent clean out in the crawlspace.  It’s not technically to code, but if we ever have a localized sewage problem it’ll do the trick.

I still don’t like plumbing, but I’m getting a little braver about delving into it.

The previous owners had the stones to put a hot tub on the upstairs deck.  They may have tripled up the joists, but it was still a terrifying affair.  They’d long since let the tub go to pot, thus saving us the trouble of deciding whether or not to keep it.  It went.

But years and years of waterlogged debauchery left things in less than acceptable condition up on deck two.  Since our shortlist of immediate improvement projects include getting the decks into shape and preparing the house to paint, it was time to delve in.

I guess in an attempt to keep the water at bay, dude went nuts with flashing beneath the decking.  What you see at the top of the pic is how it was.  The bottom shows the incomplete process of cutting it back to something manageable.  While it’s said you can score flashing with a utility knife and just bend it to snap off, this only works when it isn’t already in place.  I wound up scoring with a knife and then deeper with a dremel to cut it out.  It’s worth noting that this overabundance of flashing didn’t help.  The wood behind the flashing, mostly beneath the sliding glass door, was ruined from water damage.  So was the hardiplank.  I suspect the swath of flashing only served to keep the water around longer to do its damage.  Smart thinkin’!  And, as you can see be the staining on the joists, it still didn’t prevent hot tub water from flowing through.

Having a helper is good stuff, though him working over the missing decking gave mommy the pinchies.   We cut back all the flashing, removed all the rotten stuff and left things to dry.

New primed plank is in place.  I do not like cutting hardiplank.  I get that it’s durable as all get out, but it makes short work of most blades.  A lot of my existing plank on the back is loose but otherwise in good condition.  I’m researching pneumatic nailers to hopefully make face nailing more efficient, but I’m really concerned that finding one with enough oomph to fire nails in without leaving them proud will mean spending a pretty penny.

The ongoing plan is to tear out and redo the deck railings, clean and paint the deck and use this stuff properly angled underneath the upper deck as weather protection for the lower.

Also paint the whole exterior, after prep including removing the fake shutters and framing out the windows.  Also fixing the sprinkler system.  Did I mention the fence folks managed to put some of the sprinkler heads behind the fence?  Yes.  Yes they did.  Home ownership.  Oh how I missed it.

“What happened to the floors?”  asked the imaginary people who visit this site.  Well, the flooring company miscalculated their estimations on square footage and came up lacking.  We had to wait an additional 2 weeks for more flooring to arrive and acclimate before the downstairs could be completed.  But it’s now finally done.

Now we’re in the midst of trying to finally move into our house proper – 4 months after arriving.

There’s still a LOT left to do.  Tons of painting.  A new water heater.  Eventually a new stove and hood.  A fence.  The exterior of the house needs painting desperately.  A fix for The Door To Nowhere.  Welcome back to home ownership!  I’m split between hoping Bend grows so that this investment pays off and hoping Bend stops growing so that I’m not wanting to leave at all.

And on it goes…

Our room, complete save for trim.

Riley’s…

Guest…

The hall…

And the unfinished bonus room.

The stairs are a complicated affair.

We repainted all the removed trim.  amazing how much of it came off without trouble.

The floor adventure continues!

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The guys worked a full day yesterday tearing out the foul carpet and pad and preparing the place for new floors.

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Finally, after way longer than intended, the disgusting carpets are being replaced with hardwood.  We spent the weekend basically moving back out of the house, emptying all the rooms into the garage, storage crawls, bathrooms, laundry room and my office.  I discovered that we don’t own a lot of stuff (which I’m absolutely good with) and that this house has ample storage.  We didn’t even use attic.  Mom and son are staying at a hotel down the road.  The cat and I are holed up in my office, camping luxury style.

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