Ok so for those of you that have been over, you know that we have two balconies and one of them, we had to take out our gorgeous tile as we had a leak. Long story short, we needed to have a new deck but Paul insisted that he would do it himself. So we decided that our upstairs deck which we walk out on every morning as it's connected to our bedroom, would become a project and I would share it on here! Last weekend we went to Home Depot only to realize that Paul wasn't sure what type of wood he should go for. He thought Composite would be best; however, upon arrival, he started thinking about using real wood which I thought was the best choice.

Yesterday, we decided to go to the Home Depot in Freeport only to find that they don't have a saw there. For those of you that may not have all the tools, space, etc - you're drawn to Home Depot as they can cut the wood for you! We live in a condo and although we have common areas, cutting wood is not an option; moreover, he wanted to spend time putting the pieces together. We were told that although this location didn't have the vertical saw, we should try the location in Valley Stream. So off we went 30 mins down the road (mind you that Freeport is 30 mins from Long Beach). Paul picked out the wood and as I headed out to find the saw, I happened to see the hand written note on the vertical saw that read 'Sorry Out of Service'. I couldn't believe that there was only one saw! In speaking with Customer Service at the information desk we found out a few things: 1) she wondered why we would ask her about the saw as that was something that the Lumber Department knew about, 2) She was shocked that we wanted to know when it would be fixed and 3) she was surprised that we wanted to speak to someone who could tell us more than she did as she was laughing on the phone that we would even think to ask her to assist us as "we should know that she had no idea". Finally someone from Lumber came and was surprised that the saw was broken and when asked, he said that sometime at the end of next week it could be fixed. We left with no wood and no one offering any way of assisting us and of course our deck being finished seemed like an impossibility. We had about $200 worth of product that we walked away from and wondered how many other people were frustrated and walked away that day? They had no idea that we traveled from a previous location just to make this purchase!

This morning, Paul asked me to get up and said "we're off to Home Depot". To say that I was dreading this would be an understatement and without getting up I told him that he should ask if we had a saw and whether it was working as I didn't want to waste my Sun at yet another Home Depot with staff that was terribly uninterested and helping people! We headed to Hempstead and interestingly enough, the vertical saw was broken (shocker) but they had a saw that could cut our wood and finally we were able to get them cut and bring them back to the house! Also more surprising is that the guy who worked in lumber was actually helpful and gave Paul tips on how to build it! Do your homework before going to Home Depot and try to keep your frustrations at a minimum (I can only hope that the woman who asked about stains for her roof was helped as she was told to go back to the aisle and maybe someone would be by in about 20 mins at the Valley Stream location- she was already confused about what her best options were and to be told this was such an injustice in my opinion).

I hope that we got everything that we needed as I dread the very idea of going back . Above are videos of Paul at Home Depot getting his materials and sharing his thoughts on the deck. Future Sun posts will share how we are coming along with the deck as this is our first project to do!