The Big Damn Deck Deck project – Phase Two
A retrospective
Click any pic to view full-size.
Oct 3, 2016 – Wifey supreme Rhonda Haggard Foster poses nonchalantly with her impact driver and psychedelic mud boots after two days of carpentry. Who knew a woman of such petite stature, who normally spends her day pushing around small white sheets of a distinctly different sort of wood product, could wrangle green 2x10x12s with such aplomb and dispatch?
The 27 posts (set in concrete) are all 4×6 treated pine, with additional attached 2×6 underpinnings supporting the main joists. Technically, the deck is a free-standing structure, not tied to the house in any way.
When I took the pic with Rhonda, the perimeter posts were in, the doubled primary perimeter joists had been hung with carriage-head bolts, and we were bolting in the secondary joists. Later came a long row of center posts, which I put in once all the secondary joists (the ones going left to right) had been set so as to ensure alignment, with the center posts positioned firmly under and supporting the secondaries.
The 47’x10′ deck will be joined to where she’s sitting on Phase One with a wedge-shaped section yet to be framed. Phase Two is slated for completion this month, with Phase Three continuing on around the far corner of the homestead in 2017.
The next pic shows the deck fully framed, awaiting the installation of the edge decking, a single row of decking going around the perimeter of the deck. This was done mostly for appearance sake, though edging the deck does protect the ends of the deck boards, as well.
It was a glorious Brown County October to be building something cool with my honey. Rhonda has a wonderful career as an HR manager for a large multinational retailer (she also graduated law school summa cum laude — my standard line is that as smart as she is, I’m still smarter — cause I married her and she married me!), and so the woman has very little spare time for home improvement projects. But that won’t stop her from getting her little hands dirty if I need some help. I simply couldn’t have done this project entirely by myself.
You can see the leaves just beginning to turn. A beautiful time of the year in Brown County.
Oct 25, 2016 – The big damn deck project continues apace. Here we see all the framing completed, all the edge decking installed, the 12′ wedge connecting the main deck to Phase One completed, and we were going about the relatively quick process of finally laying in the decking down the 35′ main deck. We were about halfway done with main deck, and getting excited to see the final result taking shape. The end was near.
Considering the size of the deck and how high off the ground it would be at the far end (7′ and change), we overbuilt the framing, using 2x10s for all primary and secondary joists, with 2x6s lag-screwed in between on 16″ centers.
Oct 28, 2016 – The decking is done, and we’re moving onto it early. Plan to grill some steaks tonight and enjoy our new big damn deck with the grandkids. Seven weeks in construction time, working when we had time and the weather was favorable. Mighty satisfying.
In the lower right corner can be seen some temporary RV steps we had lying about, so we could get from the big damn deck down to the yard. A permanent stair will be built in 2017.
At this point I thought we might be done for the season, that the railings could wait. But fair weather and a desire to see the deck in its full glory spurred us on to finish the job.
Click to enlarge
Nov 14, 2016 – The new deck (with the railings completed) was festooned today with some cool guitar art. I need to thank my buddy Matt at Hoosier Buddy Liquors for these. They had this bottle display in there for a long time, two huge guitar laminates with shelves between them. I told Matt (on one of my not infrequent visits) that if the day ever came that they wanted to be rid of the display, I’d be happy to take it off their hands.
About a month ago I got the nod from HB. I brought home the display and disassembled it, then applied multiple coats of polyurethane on the guitars to protect the wood from the elements, and today hung them on the side of the house.
It suits me right down to the ground. And yes, I had wifey’s OK to do this. What a peach!
There comes a time for all good homesteaders to put their feet up and enjoy the fruits of their labors. Here’s my feet up before a nice little fire, the first one in our screened fire-pit on the new deck. Out-of-view to the left is my side-table with a nice glass of merlot at the ready. Life is good.
