Preparing

It's curious how much of the work in a project comes before you start

I’ve been working on our deck recently—basically just pulling up boards and replacing them, and eventually painting them the same color as the original boards (and railing, and fence), both to avoid an HOA approval for a new color and to not have a ridiculous stained wood deck with a flipper-gray everything else.

It’s really striking, when you’re doing a project like this, how little work the actual core of the project is. In this case, once you have new boards cut and ready, screws, and a drill (pre-drill the holes no matter what the screws say) and screwdriver, it’s easy. But everything else? Removing an old board with three kinds of screws in it, half of which either strip or are rusted out half an inch deep, keeping them anchored in the joist? Cutting the boards in half so the dump will accept them (although no one really checks if the boards are longer than the 8-foot (website) or 6-foot) phone call limit)? Using a vise-grip pliers to pull out the screw stubs that are left, hoping you don’t stab your foot tightrope-walking over the joists? Yeah, all of that is a lot harder than putting down new deck boards. But it’s also part of it. When I run into something annoying or frustrating like this, I like to say, it’s all part of it. And it is.

I remember my dad mentioning once something about how a construction crew built a house once in two hours (or something). I guess it was a world record for fastest construction for a house. The conceit was that they got everything ready first, and then when everything and everyone was in place, the actual construction only took two hours (or however long). The point being kind of what I’m finding with the deck: the preparation for a job is most of the work, but there’s no shortcut for it.

This is kind of like mise en place for cooking, the French (of course) term for getting all your ingredients ready before you start actually cooking. Just like with construction, most of the work of cooking is often in the preparation. Frying vegetables, for example, is easy; cutting and washing them is harder. Throwing something in the oven is easy. But it’s all what’s in the pot.