A deck for the house.

Over the last several years I have been increasingly disappointed in the little stairway that the builder supplied for the back door.  It meets code... but that is the most you can say for it.  Jan and I really wanted a nice deck that we can sit out on.  After looking at the IRS refund this year we decided to see about building one.

We originally wanted something in the 10' X 24' range but after getting several quotes for the material we settled on a 12' X 16' deck with the deck and handrails being made from no-maintenance composite material.  Bridgewater Lumber was very helpful in acquiring the material and delivering it to my backyard.

One Deck - some assembly required!

I am very fortunate in having some very good friends and they were a big help on this project.  Dave Richardson (Just_George on SEMIWW) came out Friday afternoon and got me started in the right direction.  He helped me dig and set the support posts and build the support headers that the deck structure is built on.

On Saturday Jeff Thrush came over and we built the deck structure and set it in place on the headers.

We then started to install the deck surface.  We had to dodge rain showers on Saturday and Sunday but we soon installed the last deck boards.

After that we started on the handrails.

Dave came back on Monday afternoon to help me set up the stairway - to me about the hardest part of the project.

It took a couple of evenings to get it built and trimmed out.  The handrails were an adventure.  I ended up making a "prototype" (Norm would be proud) out of 2X4's before I cut up the expensive composite material.

I still need to mount the trim boards around the lower part of the deck.  I will need one more 1X12X12' trim board and one more 2X4X12' to make an additional hand rail cap.

Almost Done:

To Be Continued!!