Friday, I stopped on my way west and picked up the stairs stingers, 14 ft thick deck for the stair treads, and other miscellaneous lumber for the stairs. Loaded up and got on the ferry.
Chris brought me a load of gravel to finish off the back of the driveway and fill-up to the left side of the front deck stairs. You can see the curved approach in the photo below.
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| Driveway gravel fluff |
Before it got too dark, I was able to set one 4x4 post in the ground in preparation for the back stairs...
Saturday morning, I got an early start and set the LAST 4x4 post for the entire deck project. For those of you keeping track, I think that makes it 34 total posts. Just to put that into perspective, even if you are really good (and I'm not), it takes at least 1/2 hour per post to dig, level, re-dig, re-level, drop in the dry concrete and then plumb the post. In reality, this is probably way over 20 hours.
So...
All posts done, good!
On to the stairs...
Take a measurement...
Holy sh-t!
I bought all of the stair material for a 14 ft span because that is what I thought I needed. It turns out, the stair opening is 15ft! I am now screwed!
I was ready to "call it a day" and forget the deck for the weekend, because there was no way I was loading it all back up and going to Menards again. Luckily, Chris had Winston working for us this weekend. After a little convincing, I sent Winston on his way to catch the 9:30 am ferry, destination - Menards and back!
While I waited for the proper sized deck material, I got cracking on the back deck bar top. Below, you can see a photo of this finished product. Just need some outdoor bar stools.
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| deck bar |
Winston made it back to the island around 1:00 pm I think. Time to get moving on the back steps. Here is a photo of the progress below:
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| back stairs underway |
By 5:00 pm it was time to go to Ron & Sandy's barn for a clam bake.
Sunday morning, I made the push to get it done. I rock-n-rolled on the stair treads, side railings and spindles. Just when I thought the sun was shining bright and I would be done soon, I noticed that the last 15ft deck board to be used for the final stair tread had a few saw cuts in it. Someone had returned this board to Menards and when Winston picked it up the day before, he didn't notice.
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| back stairs |
So, I proceeded to clean-up the mess of remaining scrap wood and load up the truck with all returnable material and headed to Menards once again...
Final progress photo when I left on Sunday.
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| progress photo |
Next steps:
- Finish the back steps - one more board!