Build a deck.

Due to poor weather, other commitments, and lack of ambition, I shall postpone this project until summer.

I now, however, own a book on designing and building decks… at which I have as of yet barely glanced. :-(

I have decided I would like to do this. Actually, I will be rebuilding and slightly extending an existing deck rather than building a completely new deck. I’d like to start during the holiday break in late December. I just ordered a book, Building a Deck: Build Like a Pro by Scott Schuttner from Amazon.com. The existing deck is starting to show some termite damage in addition to general wear.

A FRUSTRATING aspect of listing this goal at 43Things is deciding what to CALL the goal. A search for “deck” turns up numerous goals. I wish more 43Things people would search existing goals before quickly typing in, or in many cases, mis-typing in, their own lame version of an existing goal. After all, one of the appeals of this site is to SHARE the experience with others.

“Build a deck.” currently has the greatest number of participants among deck-related 43Things goals. Note that this is “Build a deck.” with a capital “B” and a period at the end. “build a deck” with no capital letter and no period is also listed as a goal, with one participant. “Rebuild my deck” was another option I considered, with two participants, but I was not keen on the adjective “my,” preferring “the” or “a.”

Perhaps I’m nit-picking. I mean, who cares, right? So what if the recommendation 43Things makes is, “complete this sentence: I want to….” Using that format, the correct way to phrase this goal would be, “build a deck.” I didn’t see that option when I searched, and I didn’t want to start yet another deck-related goal, particularly one where I would be the only participant.

Anyway, yeah… the book should arrive in a couple of weeks, and then I’ll have a month or so to figure out how to build a deck, pick out materials, and decide how to pay for it. Paying for it: now there’s the real challenge! ;-)