13 March 2011

I love demo

So I've been seeing this guy.  We'll call him Carlos.  And he came to see me in January.  And the date went well, but when he went to leave it was dark.  And he backed out of my driveway and ran over the wheelchair ramp.

He knocked it a good foot and a half toward the street.  He went up over top of it and his wheels crushed the boards and sort of fell into the ramp.  It was starting to come away from the house.  You can see it in this pic.  It used to be relatively straight.

Now I could have gotten mad, but so many people have hit that wheelchair ramp that I really couldn't blame him. And considering how many people have hit that ramp, I didn't have the nerve to ask him to pay for the repair.  To his credit, he did offer to come back and fix it.  I never pressed him on it.  So today, I went to Lowe's to get some wood to fix the eight (yes, eight!) boards that were damaged.   Less than $50, nails included.


Only I get the eight boards off and I see that the damage is far more extensive.  The entire ramp is off it's moorings.  Well, that's not exactly right.  The ramp was still on the moorings, but the moorings were broken and just hanging on for dear life to the joists.  The joists themselves were twisted and broken.


This is supposed to be straight.  And the other side didn't fare much better.


Long story short:  its was no longer structurally sound.  It had to go.  So at about 5 pm this evening, I got busy.


The impressive thing?  The job was done and cleaned up before 6:30.

And this is what it looks like now.


That's the best I could do in the dark.

I got all my aggressions out and got rid of what I have always considered an eye sore.  I have decided to learn how to set posts and I'm going to put a small landing on the front and use the ten boards I bought today to make stairs.  With a long path before you get to the driveway.  Someone would have to really be trying to hit that.  But the whole time I am tackling this project, all I can think of is how when I am done, I'm going to go enjoy some time on the sun porch that I cleaned up yesterday.  Only I forgot that I have to go pollinate plants tonight.  So no sun porch for me.  Maybe another day.

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