It took me the entire day yesterday. My muscles ache, my hands and arms are scratched and irritated, and I've been humbled by some extremely heavy railroad ties. But I did it. Here's a low-quality picture of the new wall with a few of the old ties sitting by the new wall. Some of the lower ties were in decent shape, so I left them alone. You can see a small color difference between the old and new. I had already hauled away most of the old wood when I remembered I hadn't taken a picture. It looked a little more impressive before, but you get the idea.
The third row from the top is one eight-foot railroad tie. I can't pick up an entire tie by myself. All I can do is pick up one end and move it around that way. After several unsuccessful attempts to get that sucker on top of the wall and several silent prayers, I tried pushing it up the side of the wall. I got it even with the top of the wall, but couldn't get it on top. Then the idea came to me to let one end rest on the tie just below the top and swing the other end around and lift it enough to get it on top of the wall. A little more sweat and blood and I got it pushed into place. It's hard to explain how it worked, but after struggling with it for about 20-30 minutes, I was able to get it where it needed to go.
Every time I take on a new project, things come up that I wouldn't have imagined tackling and the project becomes more difficult and takes longer than I originally estimated. This project was no exception. I had to bring most of my tools from the old house. I ended up borrowing several tools from a neighbor like a reciprocating saw (my circular saw didn't quite cut through the entire width of the railroad ties) and an axe so I could use the butt end to slam the spikes into the railroad ties (that darn rubber mallet just wouldn't cut it). I should have used this as an excuse to buy a sledge hammer, but I didn't want to run to the store again.
My biggest mistake was underestimating the weight of the ties. A little research online tells me new ties might be 150, even 200 pounds. Maybe I'm weaker than I thought, but they seemed like more than that to me. All I know is they're HEAVY! The guy at Lowe's told me he had a friend who at one time carried two of them, one on each shoulder. I have never been and never will be that tough.
Another fun things that popped up was the failure of my extension cord. I had a long cord and a short one. The long one didn't work, so I used the short one for a while, but found it didn't reach far enough to do what I needed. I debated going to the store again (already sick of doing that), trying to repair the cord, or finding some other workaround. After a minute of debate, I sat down for about 15-20 minutes and spliced and taped the wires where the cord had been cut. I hadn't factored that little adventure (one of many) into my original estimate. But it worked.
Anyway, the wall is done; Brett is sore; and he feels pretty dang good about it. Another Saturday should wrap up some small cement repair projects and the disassembly and loading of our old playset so we can set it up at our new home. Our youngest has been praying for several things every night for weeks. Among them are pleas for help in selling our house and help in bringing our playset to our new house. The buyers wanted the playset, but partly because of those prayers, I negotiated to keep it. I figured if God was willing to answer that first request, I could help with the second. It's worth a little extra work to help answer those sweet little prayers. Funny how something like that can tug at my heart and make me do something I wouldn't normally have done.
No comments:
Post a Comment