Odds and ends

I had a five day long weekend, so we got a lot of little things done on the fence and the deck. I built a jig to put the post caps on with dowels. The post cap fits on one side of the jig, and the post on the other, so the holes line up perfectly. We'll see how well the dowels hold on the caps, I wasn't too impressed with how nails hold them on. I used waterproof glue, so we'll see how it holds with 4 dowels. I finished the small section adjoining the fence at the side yard, I had a hard time with the pocket holes, because I couldn't get the drill in there, because the space was so small. I filled some of the pocket holes with Plastic Wood filler, I've been told filler doesn't work so good on exterior wood, that it just pops out, I guess time will tell. I was looking for a 2 part epoxy filler, but I couldn't find any.
On the deck, I finished putting on the fascia boards, they were missing on 2 sides. I redid one of the railings as well. I cut the angle wrong for the transition. I thought any angle would work, as long the other angle made up the difference. We'll you need to bisect the angle (divide it equally). I used a compass to do that, remembering some of the geometry that I learned in high school. It worked out perfectly. There's a small 4" piece of railing at the bottom, I doweled that as well. There's another railing I'm not happy with, that I'm going to replace. We added an arbour to one side of the deck as well. I built it out of 2 2x6's 11'-5" long. I screwed the pieces together first, then slipped it over the posts. Deb was going to help me, but I ended up doing it myself. It's all held on with lag bolts, and looks a lot better. We can't decide whether to have bamboo blinds for privacy, or to put hanging baskets there.

Even with 5 days off, I didn't have time to do it, well we were busy relaxing as well. I did a few coats of varnish on the fir posts as well, they're starting to look really nice. I still need to finish sanding the beams, I should have done it before putting them up. It's a lot more difficult with them up in the air. A few hours with the belt and orbital sander should do it. We'll need another litre of varnish though. We're going to re-stain the deck, then it'll be done.
We're going to be moving on to stucco removal, and the small 5x5 porch that the deck is connected to. I still have to research the options, it's such a small area, that I don't really want to hire someone to do a torch-on. I'm thinking epdm rubber, but I have to find a place to buy it, and all the connecting pieces. It doesn't seem very straight forward. Will have some more pictures of the deck and fence, once they're stained.