A Brief Addendum To Recent Writing Advice

You may recall than in a recent blog post about self-publishing, I advised a reader that it was best to do as much yourself as possible, but that sometimes it is necessary to hire something out. By way of example, I cited my front porch, which I planned to have replaced.

I had two reasons for replacing my front porch – several of the deck boards had gotten rotten, and during the winter, a large ice dam had broken off the house and punched a crater in two more of the boards. This seemed like a good reason to replace the porch.

However, finding a contractor proved difficult. Actually, I shouldn’t say that. Finding contractors proved easy. Getting them to return phone calls proved much, much harder. Finally, in a burst of exasperation, I decided to do it myself. Closer inspection of the porch revealed that while many of the deck boards were in bad shape, the joists and the supporting posts were still sound.

I watched several YouTube videos on deck repair, and then spent an hour driving around a vast, city-sized Lumber Warehouse until I located the precise kind of decking I needed. After that it was a few hours with a prybar, a mallet, and a pair of pliers to remove the damaged/rotten boards and their nails, and maybe another hour to position and secure them with proper outdoor deck screws instead of the nails whoever built the porch used.

And then it was done! Six hours and $70 of lumber/screws, all told. Should further damage occur to the porch, I will have the spare lumber and screws on hand to repair it.

What can we learn from this? When it comes to publishing and home repair, whenever possible, it’s best to follow the advice of Thanos the Mad Titan and do it yourself. 🙂

-JM