Deck

We built a new deck.  It wasn't in the remodel plans, or in the budget, but it was necessary.  Just a refresher - when we cut away a corner of the deck to make room for the new kitchen, we discovered that our lousy builder had not put any weather proofing against the wood rim board before the concrete patio was poured.  Years of water being trapped up against the house resulted in the wood rotting away.  I can still remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had for days after we discovered this. 

 We knew that if this corner looked like this, everywhere the patio touched would look the same.  The decision was made that the entire patio had to come out.  It made for some great entertainment for my boys.

Once the patio was torn out, our fears were confirmed.  The entire rim board was rotted through, and had to be replaced.  It took the workers about half a day to replace the rim board.  The patio wouldn't be so easily replaced.

So, in the meantime, I used the wood that I had torn out of the wall where the fireplace had been, and patched together this little sidewalk leading from the back door, out past the sandy road mix, and to the grass.

The sidewalk worked for most of the winter and through the spring, but it couldn't be a permanent solution.  So Scott spent hours researching how to build a deck, and we tackled the project ourselves.

We cleared away our makeshift sidewalk/deck, and replaced it with deck support boards.  This sounds easier than it was.  We had to haul away truck loads and truck loads of road mix, to level out the ground underneath.  Then we had to dig deep deep holes to fill with cement with support brackets to hold a beam.  Then we had to paint all of the support boards with a weather proofer (regular lumber was about half the price of pressure treated, so we bought regular boards, and painted them to make them equally weather proofed as pressure treated).  Then the support boards had to be attached to the house with metal hangers, then out across the beam.  And then we had to do cross supports along each support board.  And all of it had to be level.  It took weeks.

Once all the support boards were in, Scott trimmed them to the right length.

Once the final coat of stucco went on the house, we were able to move full speed ahead on the deck.

The deck boards started going on, one by one.  This took forever.  Each board had to be attached with a hidden fastener on every support board.

Here you can see the elaborate support system that we had to create before the deck boards could go on.  

As soon as Scott came home from work each day, we went to work building the deck.  Every spare minute was spent building the deck.  Day and night. All summer long.

Finally, the deck is done! We still need to do some little touch up painting on the edges where we had to cut boards, but it's 99.9% done and is fully functional.  I absolutely love it.  It's about twice as big as our old one, and is made out of composite decking, so we will never have to sand or stain it.

And all the outside work (stucco, rain gutters, etc) is finished too. I think they did a great job of matching the new stucco color with the old. 

Our yard still needs a ton of work. It's been through a lot over the past year. But it's come a long way since the Spring when it was covered in dirt. All the grass that was buried under all that dirt has come back all on it's own. We are so very close to having our lives back to normal!