“Perfect,” she said in delight. “That’s really kind of her.”
“I don’t know about it being kind of her,” he said, “as much as it’s something I was supposed to clean up months ago.” His voice was sheepish, as if to say he’d been in trouble over the whole deal.
Doreen chuckled. “Hey, that works for me too,” she said. “Much appreciated.”
“Not a problem,” he said. “We’ve got the rest of this to get on with, but some of us can be working on this too.”
“That’s perfect,” she said with a big fat smile.
As they headed over to the rest of the men, Mack called her toward the edge of the deck location. “Either we can put steps down toward Richard’s place or we can do steps all the way around,” he said. “Or we put up railings.”
She frowned. “Right. We’re back to that railing thing, aren’t we?” she said. “What are the pros and cons?”
Immediately the men jumped in with comments. “Well, if you put a railing up, you can put chairs closer to the edge. No danger of falling over.”
“Wow,” she said. “I didn’t even think about that.” She contemplated the edge of her new deck and how high off the ground it would be. “And that is a problem even if steps are all the way around, isn’t it?”
“Particularly if you want to put a barbecue or a table and chairs up here,” the new arrival said. “My suggestion was to bring the deck out a little bit farther and widen this section off. We’d have to add another couple cinder blocks, but that’s it. And you’ve got some spares. You could have steps that go down here, and we could put a railing up on this side and leave the front wide open with the steps. That would allow you lots of places to sit, and you can put all kinds of furniture up here, and then you’ll have a stairway all across this long deck side facing the creek. And a short narrow set of stairs going from the deck down toward Richard’s fence, so you can easily go down to that side of the house.”
She stared, noting the new markers for this version of the deck, and asked, “Do we have enough material for that though?”
Mack shook his head. “No, we don’t,” he said. “You’ll be short a little bit, but I don’t think it’ll be too bad.”
And she looked beyond the deck expansion and asked, “We’re putting a patio in here, weren’t we?”
“And we still can,” he said, “but we’ll start it from this side and pour it in that direction.” He talked about a four-foot concrete patio from where the deck steps went across the one edge of the deck and then all the way down and into a big patio section.
“Well, that would look quite nice,” she said in surprise. “Anyway, are you making the patio and this sidewalk here run all the way down to the creek?”
“It can go down a way, then also go all around the side of the house,” the new guy said. “Up to this side.” He pointed it all out. “You could even put stamped concrete all the way down both sides.”
“I would love to have all this area cleaned up into stamped concrete,” she admitted but hating to feel the money issue rear it’s ugly head, “but that sounds very expensive.”
The men frowned as they muttered about cost and framing and whatnot. “You can’t do it all at once today,” the new guy said. She couldn’t even remember his name. “But, if we can get it framed up, it’s pretty cheap to get the bags of concrete and mix yourself.”
“That’s a lot to pour though,” the captain said. “It would all have to be done pretty fast.”
“And I can’t afford to bring in a truck,” she said.
“You know what? I don’t think it would take all that long,” said Tony, the newest guy. “I got a little mixer, and that’s pretty easy. We could do all this little sidewalk area probably in one single pour. And, while it’s being leveled, we could be mixing up another batch to go along here.”
Nobody else had any experience with concrete, just him, so he said, “Let me go home and take a look at what I’ve got and how it might work out. You guys get working on the deck, and I’ll come back with some deck boards that I’ve still got there.” Then he paused before continuing, “I think I have some railing as well. I might have enough to do that one side.” And, with that, he took off.
She looked around at the others and said, “I hate to keep you all on a weekend. This is a good time to stop for the day.”
The men immediately shook their heads. “If we’re widening and lengthening the deck, let’s get the beams down on the cinder blocks on the other side, then we’ll add in the big crossbeams.”
She sighed, shrugged, and watched. She walked over to Mack, who was busy talking to the captain. She tapped him gently on the arm. He looked down at her, smiled, and asked, “What do you think?”
“I think all of them are great ideas,” she said. “I’m worried about a small project going big.”
“Yes,” he said, “but keep in mind what your original budget was too.”
She nodded. Then, in a whisper, she said, “What about pizza?”
Chapter 7
Saturday Early Evening …
Mack nodded and looked at the captain. “How long will you be around?”
The captain looked at his watch and said, “Oh, I’m good for a couple more hours. Did I hear you say pizza?” And a big grin crossed his face as he patted his tummy. “I can only get pizza when my wife is not around,” he said. “Otherwise, you know what that’s like.”
Mack chuckled. Several of the other guys turned, looked, and said, “Did you say pizza?”
“Well, I was thinking I should
