Brittany Bower

We have now had our house for 5 years, it’s crazy how fast time flies!

We’ve made a lot of changes in that time, some revising what was here already and some adding our own touches. But this summer has focused on finally cleaning up the projects we have undone, making our yard more visually pleasing and safer for the little ones running around (our friend’s kids) and hopefully, our future furry one.

The previous owners had a small deck for the pool steps, similar to the ones we have now, but on the opposite side of the pool. It served its purpose, but was starting to show its age and wasn’t to our liking, We usually get out to the backyard through the French doors in the living room or from our bedroom – on the opposite end of the house. On top of that, while we we do have grass in our back yard, it didn’t grow between the pool and the house due to a lack of sun when we moved in, so we tracked in mud every time we came back in after being in the pool.

So Chris did what he does and started tearing it down. Getting the boards off was the easy part. The hard part was dismantling the concrete blocks that had cement poured in the center and then bolted to the ground. We tried sledgehammers but they were no match – they simply bounced off. We talked about getting a back hoe and burying them or renting a jackhammer to break them apart, but thought it would take days and subsequently several hundreds of dollars. So they had been an eye sore for about 4 of the past 5 years.

Finally, during the hottest summer I can ever remember in Florida, my husband did what he does and searched on Amazon for a solution – a jack hammer for about $200 (a rental is about $80/day). Knowing that it would physically hard work and guessing that he’d only be able to stand the heat for 15 minutes a day, this would be a tremendous savings if it worked out. Our only hesitation with it was knowing that it would not be the same quality as the commercial rental.

The packaging is nice with a case to hold everything and make sure the pieces don’t end up scattered across the shed. But the quality of the jack hammer is even more impressive. It’s obviously physically straining, at 54 pounds bouncing back and forth against cement and concrete, but the blocks just started tumbling off, and it was even quiet enough for him to continue while I worked in my office without my those on the phone complaining about any background noise.

Now that the old pool deck is FINALLY gone, that side of the yard is cleaning up nicely, although still in need of some work. We got rid of the tree as it was effecting the foundation of our house and now that strip has filled in with some nice grass.

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Tags: Backyard Upgrade, Deck, home renovation, Jack Hammer, Pool, Tools