Thursday--Ledger-demain

Tom made a trip back to San Rafael in the morning to buy ledger hardware, beams, and the first set of joists, while I finished up the cleanup at the Big House (removing scaffolding and attending to some naggy little projects) and began the process of drilling pilot holes in the ledger pieces where Tom had marked them.  Because we now had 6 inches of thickness to deal with, this process was, shall we say, athletic, as the bolt holes would be 11/16" in diameter.  I got in touch with my inner spelunker and spent some quality time in the relative cool of the basement working outward, but with the afternoon temperature approaching 80 degrees, we did some sweating.

With the big holes spotted, we could remove the temporarily fitted ledger, turn it inside up, and Tom could secure the spacers that will hold it slighly off the membrane / flashing.

Sometimes the big bolts go in just fine, and other times the holes don't line up perfectly, and they need a little persuasion.  Tom and I took turns wielding the Persuader.

The ratchet wrench got a workout, as did I.  I alternated between using the hand tool and wearing out batteries on the impact driver, but the result of our day's work was a level, secure ledger that is ready for joist hangers once the beams are set. 

Here's the ledger bolted in place, minus a couple of bolts on the far right because we ran short of spacers.  Golden State had run out of 4 x 8 pressure-treated beams that morning, so Muggs and I  tragically only had to shift two 16-footers from the rack of his truck to their place down the hill where he says he'll be able to levitate them onto the perfectly-cut posts.

With some bad weather coming back and some Easter week concerts impinging on Tom's schedule, I will probably tackle what I can in the way of follow-up early in the week--filling out fasteners that Tom will have partially set.  Some of this I hope will involve Alex, who'll be home for a week from school (yay!). 

To get ready for the next phase, I'll also have to attack the pile of redwood under the tarp on the badminton court, taking nails out and turning it into a stack, and then taking a saw-kerf's width off the edges before running it through the planer once or twice.  I'm hoping to be able to re-claim a fair amount of the wood we demo'd last month, and while I focus on decking Tom will be able to attack the stair placement.