Construction Instruction

tree saga part 3 continued

I haven't forgotten. I know I haven't been keeping up with my posts on the front yard re-do. We've been too busy re-doing. As small as our yard is, there is so much attention to detail. Angles. Lengths. Heights. Proportions. Materials. Function. Design.

Once the measurements were decided and the design drawn up, we had to rebuild the front retaining wall so our front yard was flat, not sloping towards the sidewalk. It turned out great. Then the base had to be constructed for the deck.

My husband believes in a solid foundation. The base boards are evenly spaced at an appropriate distance from each other and are anchored with concrete. He says a right foundation is absolutely necessary for a solid, functional and attractive deck.

We chose Ipe, a Brazilian plantation harvested hard wood, for the surface. This wood is so dense that the slats are half the thickness of a typical redwood deck. It's also impervious to fire, termites, warping and rot. Indeed, our house will probably fall down and we will be dead by the time this deck needs replacing.

But it's absolutely beautiful. My husband applied two coats of stain by hand to bring out its natural color. Neighbors gathered to watch the process. I kid you not. (But then don't all the neighborhood men like to watch another guy on the street work on a project so they can come by and give unsolicited advice, nods of approval and a prayer of thanks that it's not them doing the work?)

The finished deck. It's now my job to choose the plants and the deck furniture. I'm agonizing over those decisions as much as my husband did over the deck.

This whole process reminds me of Solomon building God's temple. God drafted a design in which everything detail was thought through. No detail was too small and nothing was left out. It, too, had a solid base and a beautiful covering. The result was no less than spectacular ~ not just in the finished product but in its intended usage.

God will do that for our lives, too, if we let Him establish a solid foundation and we follow His blueprints for building. The exciting news is that this construction is intended to last for eternity.