Ok, this blog post is dedicated to the deck project...
No joke, I spent 10 days straight working on the deck. Some days just for a few hours and some days from early morning until it got dark (or when Bonnie made me stop)
I like to start my blog posts with really "engaging" photos. The idea it to keep the reader interested right from the start. We all know, nobody reads anything anyway. All we do it look for photos and something to click on. So with that, here is the deck project where I left it Sunday night before leaving the island.
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| looking good! |
I am seriously happy with the progress so far. I'll share some photos and dialog on how I got there.
Saturday morning, I picked up where I left off on July 18th, with the continued framing of the joists and the base structure. I still had (30-40) 2 x 10 x 12s left on the pile, but I knew it would probably not be enough to finish this step.
Sunday morning, I had to go off island to the Sandusky Home Depot to pick up more boards and screws. I was back at it by 1:00 pm on Sunday to finish up all the wrap-around/joist framing from the middle of the cottage to back past the sliding door. Then, I had to re-mediate all the loose ends that got warped by too much sun exposure and nothing to tie it all together (for the last 3 weeks). I still only have 4 ends boards to hang on the finished edge. So totally happy to be almost done with 2 x 10s. Bob Cisar, helped by installing about 80 hurricane ties for the joists. This deck is very solid.
Here are some photos of the progress and the kids hanging out.
Monday or Tuesday (I can't remember) I finished up all inter-bracing to keep the joists from moving. Then I FINALLY got to start decking. This is the "high feedback" portion of the job. Where you actually get to see the finished deck top as you go. I started on the 8 ft section along the cottage to get a full board. Then I worked left until I reached the end... approx 24 ft. I would take measurements about every 4 boards to make sure that I was square to the cottage and the deck. This is crazy critical, because you do not want to end up with uneven decking at the ends. It would look very crappy and then you are stuck with it forever! So, needless to say, I ended up on the far left perfectly square.
So funny, when I was just getting rolling, probably 10 deck boards in, Bonnie already put the Adirondack chairs on the mini 5 ft section of deck.
Here are the finished photos of the front 8' x 24' deck section.
The next day JR came over to help me get started on the first long run along the cottage to meet the wrap around in the back. This allowed me to start on the next straight run of 12 footers along the back of the cottage. For the next day or so, I just worked the same decking system as in the front, but I was using 12 ft boards and working to the right, measuring every 4 boards until the end. Again, ended up perfectly square to the cottage and deck. FYI - those are. Please ignore the temporary movable stairs shown in the photo below as they will not be in that location when finished.
The next few days/sessions, I worked on my way on the 48 ft runs (with seams) along the cottage to the right side. This was slow going because now I had to make cuts on every deck board to meet the joists properly. My plan was to keep rolling until I ran out of deck boards. Some material had been sitting on the driveway since late May. It was high time to get these installed.
On Sunday evening (the following week), I had officially run out of usable deck boards. You can see in the photo below how much lumber is left over (not much) from about 6 big loads/trips. Getting material to the island is such a colossal pain-in-the-azz, it felt great to get so much done.
So this is where I left it. I have about 10 more rows of approx 5 decks boards each row. Unfortunately, I will be making ANOTHER lumber purchase for next weekend to wrap this up.
You can see the size and scale of the deck to the cottage in the photos below. Overall, the layout is great and really adds so much outdoor living space.
Funny side note for you...
I am 1/2 through my third 25 lb bucket of deck screws. Based on information provided on the label, that's about 5,000 decks screws used so far for structural support and the partial deck top.
FIVE THOUSAND screws and I'm not close to being done yet! That's friggin' crazy!
Bonus item!
While Bonnie was up at the cottage this week, she sanded off all of the unsightly stamped labels. Nice work.
Next steps:
