4 Miles

This year is the year of the deck.  Last year we did the patio doors.  They led to no-where so now we have to put in a where for them to lead.  Actually, last year, after putting in the doors I put in concrete blocks as steps and then found some left over bricks and made a 2 x 3 foot patio.  Not much to look at and wasn't very conducive to putting a grill, patio table and deck chairs on. 

So, this year we (and by we I mean 'I') are going to fix that.  I spent lots of time trying to decide what we wanted.  Even got a quote from a contractor.  We decided on a 12 x 4 deck with a 16 x 14 add on.  As you will see in the picture we have an A/C condenser by the door so it cut into our deck.   

First quote came in at $2600 dollars.  Basically it was $10 a square foot.  It seemed like anything we wanted to do was going to be $10 a sqr foot.  So I went to Menards to check out what they have.  They use a neat little program that allows you to design your deck and then print out pricing materials.  I couldn't figure out what ALL those materials were going to be used for.  This brought the price down to $1300.  Alright, $5 a square foot.  Cut the price in half and now I get to spend some sweat equity.  I don't mind.  I can construct.  I learnt from my dad.  He made me do all kinds of things around the farm.

(hold on, got to go see what The Otter is up to)

Okay, I am back, He found a big bag of goldfish.  Luckily they didn't get dumped.

So, then I went to Lowes to begin buying materials.  (See that, design it at Menards and buy from Lowes.)  At Lowes something called Deck blocks caught my eye.  (dragged it 15 feet) I started looking at them.  They seemed to be easier to install.  The ad said "Easier to install and cheaper".  Those are my two mottos.  I went to their website, http://www.deckplans.com/, and found the plan I wanted.  It gave me a pricing guide to send to the store and get a quote.  Came back at $750.  Wahoo, even cheaperer.

So, Sunday they delivered the materials.  Only 4 items on the list, 4×6s, 4X4s, Deck Piers, and lots and lots of screws.  Makes Menards material list look crazy.

Sunday was day one of installation.  I spent 4 hours working on getting the first 8 deck piers and 4 4×6s in.  Since I have the 4×4 cut out around the A/C condenser I had to take their installation "guide" and modify it a little.  I also had to level and square.  I don't like leveling and squaring.  I am impatient.  I want it to do it automagically.  I have provided the view from the yard to the house and from the house to the yard for the End of Day 1.

Monday I had to go back to work.  The days have been beautiful but I figured that I would work on it when I got home from work.  WRONG!!!!!!  There were other things to do.  Don't remember what but there just wasn't any time to work on the deck even if we have light until midnight during EST.

Tuesday was going to be beautiful and it was scheduled to rain a lot this week.  So, I called in sick.  Just kidding. We have PTO (Paid Time Off) so I called in, OFF and worked on the deck.  I put in a full 8 hours of work.  I don't think I have worked that hard in a while.  The end result is that all 30 piers are in and all 12 2×6s are screwed to them.  In case you are keeping track the 4×4 posts are being used.  They are used to level the deck in the piers.  Since my deck is only 18 inches off the ground I only needed 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches of 4×4.  This means that of the 6 4×4 posts I had delivered I am only going to use 1 of them.  That means I get to take 5 back and get a $35 refund.

The next step is place gravel in the appropriate spots to reduce foliage and make it easier to mow around.  After the stones are in place I will put on the deck boards.  After that is the steps and the railings.  I haven't purchased those yet.  We will do that in August.

The good news is that so far in this whole process I have only scraped one knuckle and The Otter fell out the patio door scraping his head on stones only once.  Of course this was because Tina had the door open and was yelling at gently correcting The Tort to stay out of the water.  The Otter just slipped out right next to her and dove 18 inches head first into the stones. I give him a 10 for style.