All Decked Out  

It's another repeat business customer. Bath tiles before and a big deck renovation and build now. In this rendering the upper deck gets new deck boards while the big lower deck is new.  

 

It looks good from the other angle too. The homeowner's really liked these renderings and they had to go for it.  

 

But here's the reality of the starting point. Note the stairs blocking the view and the useless steeply sloping cement pad.  

 

The bottom of the stairs is buried in cement, which is neither flat nor level.  

 

Over here is where the stairs will be moved to.  

 

Getting the stair loose from its old site.  

 

The homeowner helped me get the stair around and up. We had to remove the railings to make it light enough to drag across the yard.  

 

Loosing the stair made a huge difference. I closed off the opening above with a new railing.  

 

Here's the upper deck getting it's new boards.  

 

Next I started the new lower deck. Here I anchored 2x4s to the cement foundation.  

 

The first long board is attached at one end. The cement came out 14' and that was the original plan. But as the boards are 16' long, the homeowner wanted the full length. They also changed the run of the deck boards from length-wise to coming out from the house to eliminate joints in the decking. I was able to redesign the plan with few changes in materials.  

 

After I got the other end board in place we could now see that the deck is two and a half feet in the air at this end. 

 

Travis helped the next morning putting up the long end board and the three double inner joists.  

 

The house end of the joists needed to be cut to clear the cement. And now you can see why I used a 2x4 up against the house. It's all that would fit. 

 

With the long boards in place the homeowner could see for the first time the size of their new lower deck. It will be sixteen by twenty eight feet.  

 

Darn if that twenty eight foot edge board didn't end up straight as an arrow.  

 

A downspout had to be lowered and extended. The plan is that the top of the deck boards will line up with the bottom of this door's threshold. 

 

Next came the footings. I dug and poured four of them per the original plan here at the far end. I had to add three more along the front because the deck will now extend past the cement patio. So ended week one. Hopefully next week will see it done. So long for now.  

 

It's week two. Monday was a rain out. Lost an hour or more Tuesday to rain too. Then another half a day on Thursday. But I did get all 44 of the cross joists in place (cannot believe I didn't get a pic) and here all the deck boards are in place too. 

 

The 2x8 edge board is in place on the far end, 

 

The decking was complete with little details like this pass through for the drain.  

 

And this cutout around the upper deck support post. It's the post that's not straight, not my deck!!  

 

As of today, the deck boards have been cut flush with the perimeter and the 2x8's have been added all around. I have the railing posts all cut and most of them are up (even through they don't show here). Glad to see that somebody is already enjoying the new deck.  

 

My commute to this project takes me over Buford Dam every day. Lake Lanier is only down six feet or so. Nice view. 

 

The homeowner asked me to add the handrails to the big stair we moved. So how does one guy handle that? Well, I built the rails first, then added a board to one end (38.5" to the top of the rail) while I held and screwed the other end in place.  

 

And here is the completed stair. Note that the house side railing ends a little short of the bottom. There was no way to avoid that downspout without spending lots of dollars in time and materials.  

 

Here's the finished small stair with its cement pad. Nice and solid.  

 

The new deck does stickout a bit, eh?  

 

From the ground up; cement footings, support posts, joists, railing posts and finally the railing cap boards - so how does it turn out? You tell me.  

 

And here is the final shot. The homeowners were very happy. More later, y'all.  

BONUS PIX  

Miss Reagan and Grandma Sue.  

 

Reagan and Isaac playing together.  

 

Reagan checks out the ceiling fan while Isaac checks out Reagan.  

 

That's All Folks!