Recently I came up shorthanded on a job site where we had planned to lay a 3/4-in. T&G plywood deck. Knowing this can be a frustrating job even with help, I was loathe to start it by myself. But there was no other work to do. Spying a trio of full joint-compound buckets, I decided to go ahead and put down some decking single-handedly. After nailing down the first row, I used the buckets as weights to hold down the tongues of the second row as I drove sheets home with a 2×4 and a sledge. This method worked so well that I got the entire deck laid before my tardy helpers arrived.
Dennis Darrah, Montpelier, VT
