Last May we did a deck extension to accommodate the lower funicular (the absolutely beautiful, brilliant lower funicular) and it served the purpose well.  So well, we started using it without actually finishing the deck.

But….we have guests frequently and they stay in the adjacent boatshed (where they belong!) and the new-ish deck just never got around to growing hand rails on it’s own. One could ‘pitch’ right off the end and die a certain death on the rocks below.  It was time to finish that job.

“I think we better put rails on the lower deck.”

“OK, but I am pretty busy quilting.  And baking.  Plus there’s book club and yoga and I work at the post office this week.  And the garden is going crazy!  How long is it gonna take?”

“With your help, maybe four hours or so.  Not counting getting the lumber.  Simple, really.”

“You putting in the mid cables as well?”

“OK…six hours.  Two half-days tops.”  

Four half days later, it is done.  It’s good and strong.  It’s safe.  You’d have to be a doofus to fall in now.  Mind you, the season’s major guest days begin in a few days and there are a few doofuses expected amongst them…………….

Sal also finished mending the wall inside the boat shed (only 12 years late).  And re-routed the electrical wiring to look nicer.  The place is almost a one-star.  It would definitely rate one star in a backwater jungle country somewhere.  Maybe.  A one-star in a Bangladeshi poor village after a flood, fer sure.

And a neighbour was pitching out a square of carpet and so the boat house just got a nicer floor.  Decor improvement: $0.00

Sal’s been dragging ocean debris up to the deck….“we need a new end table…..”  Raw materials for an end table: $0.00

I cobbled the deck lines together from old sailboat rigging cable I had tucked away and some marine fittings just hanging around…… bits and pieces for assembly:$0.00

This is pure OTG.  Can-do, make-do. Try to get Sally-to-do, too.

Labour costs: $0.00

Total project cost: $0.00 (altho the govt. may tax me on the improvements so we’ll see if that remains true.)

I can afford to keep doing this kind of hobby for a long time. I certainly have enough accumulated ‘stuff’ to cobble crap together for the rest of my natural life and the cost is limited to just creating more space under the house.

I am going to call this manly hobby ‘hard-quilting’.  It’s already a trend out here, we just don’t have a name for it. We do now.

Just so long as Sal keeps helping.

This blog was interrupted by a ‘poinking’ sound.  Jack the raven was outside calling to Sally.  ‘Poink!’  Translation: “I am here for breakfast!”  Sal, of course, runs down from her upstairs computer, dives into the fridge and comes out with valuable, hard-to-get-here, food from our town trips including cheeses and meats.  “Well, what am I gonna do, Jack doesn’t like anything else except eggs and I was saving one for you.”

Thanks. Very kind of you.