Building a Deck – There is Light at the End of the Tunnel

All spring, and so far this summer has been all deck work all the time.  We’re making serious progress at this point though.  I just dropped about $4500 on the decking and railing, which will be delivered in the next week.   Here are a few in-progress pictures to review.  We’ve done a lot of work, and all that remains is the larger staircase and guard rail posts from a substructure perspective, and the decking and railing from the finishing perspective.

After putting up one ledger board, we’ve conceded that we’re just going to use a sunsetter for shade for now.  Those are a PITA to put up, and fastening it into the house was difficult enough when we had access to the framing in the unfinished basement.

The two “ledger” boards.  One has the joist hangars, the other is only bolted to the house for about 10 ft, then sticks out the rest of the way as a kind of ledger/joist.  We used it to measure what the height of the far beam should be (with a slight drop for water runoff).

 

 

 

All of the beams up, with joists as needed for blocking to support the cross-bracing required by our municipality.  Those sticks were removed when we had the permanent cross-bracing up.

 

 

 

 

 

All of the joists up looking out from the house (the screen door we’ll use to walk out onto the deck).  It was less hard to get the joists up than I expected – and a lot harder to get the beams up (they’re joined beams – and lifting a 2x12x16′ piece of wood directly over your head sucks).

 

 

 

 

This past weekend we completed the landing.  The landing needs to be complete and decked so that the upper set of stairs (the big ones) will have some place to rest on – and be fastened to.

 

 

 

We can see the end coming – definitely looking forward to having my weekends back, and not working on the deck in super hot conditions.  We did most of the work from January through now, and we’re guesstimating 4-5 more weekends of work to complete it.

2 thoughts on “Building a Deck – There is Light at the End of the Tunnel

  1. misterslm

    What a coincidence, we just had our deck done too! I wasn’t brave enough to try making it on my own, but after seeing them build it I might have to try next time. Awesome that you’re taking this on!

    Reply
    1. Mom Post author

      We just finished it and had it inspected yesterday. Watch for an update with final pictures. We added a fancy lighting system as well.

      Reply

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