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I quickly took measurements and found that one piece of wood was wider than
the second piece needed! Now what? Off to Home Depot where, much to
my surprise, Now you can better see in the above picture what I had to do. The pillar to the far left was untouched...because it was holding up my roof! Instead, I carefully cut down right next to the pillar base to remove the old wood. The pillar to the right was just hanging in air. Nope, have not a clue what was holding it there. Faith? I repeated the same operation on the "right" side of the offending pillar. The hardest part of all this cutting was trying to duplicate the 45 degree cut at the corner (and under the pillar base). The table saw is in the basement and does not have an angle attachment worth spit. Instead, I had to use a handsaw. My using a handsaw to make any kind of cut is kinda like asking a radiologist to do brain surgery. Something is going to get hurt.
By the time the new wood was in place the sun was going down, but I was determined to get at least a primer coat of paint on everything. As
it turns out I was able to get two coats of primer and one coat of final before
I just could not see to work. Anna and I have both used Liquid Sander to
prep our painting jobs and think it works pretty good. The first time we
used it, we had cleaned a surface I had to fiddle with the wood a bit more to make it come close to matching the other boards that were not removed. Still, I think it looks pretty good. Total cost was about $25. Compare that to an estimate of over $1,500 for this one pillar and section. There are at least two more to go! If any of them call for jacking up the roof though, I will look for a second job so I can hire someone who actually knows what they are doing. |
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there was exactly the piece of wood I needed...laying, of course,
under a ton of wood that was bent in every direction you can imagine. The
piece I needed would have to be pretty flat. There was one board I could
use in the whole stack and me and another guy had spotted it. He was very
generous and told me he was just making stringers and could cut away chunks he
did not need. He even helped me get to "my" board and then aided
my getting it loaded onto those impossible carts. Nice guy. 
In
spite of myself, I managed to get the replacement wood positioned, including the
new base for the pillar. Had to nudge the roof up a bit more so I could
tap that new base into place. I think the pillar was slowly easing down
from the attachment at the top of the roof support. Next time, think I
will remove the pillar altogether. These pillars are solid wood, much like
a tree trunk. Who knows how much they actually weight, especially when
coming down on your fingers. 
with soap and water. When we used the
Liquid Sander the once clean rag came up pretty dirty. Proof enough for us
that soap and water do not always work well. Liquid Sander also claims to
be a de-glosser. Since we have started using high gloss latex paint on our
outside surfaces, de-glossing is an issue for us.