It's a celebration

 

Let there be grass!

 

Landscaping fun time!

 

The home stretch

 

Getting Closer...

 

The hammer drill

After completing the first section of the deck prior to mother's day weekend I took it easy and worked on the connecting section of the deck. I learned this weekend the importance of having the right tools for the job. A co-worker of mine, Mike, was generous enough to let me borrow his hammer drill. The only problem was the fact that it had seen better days, and was not nearly as hammerlicious as it was in it's youth. Even with the assitance of the elder hammer drill it took several minutes to drill through the concrete block and sink the anchors for the deck.

After beating myself to death holding the drill up in a futile attempt to punch a hole through cinder blocks I decided I had get a new drill. The only drills in my possesion were hand me downs from my father and father in law, all of them being older than I was at the time.



After doing some preliminary research online I found the drill that I wanted. A 7/8th inch hammer drill made by Bosh. This has to be the best $199 I have spent in a long time. Rather than 4-5 mintues drilling a hole in concrete, this new drill too 4-5 seconds. Absolutely amazing.

Here is a glorious photo of my blessed hammer drill. My only regret is that I didn't purchase this handy tool earlier. However, my mom and dad pointed out that I would not have appreciated the drill as much without first suffering as I attempted to drill holes without the new tool. Knowing what I know now I don't really care, I am just happy to have it's service now. Anyone in the market I would highly recomment Bosh hammer drills :-D




Like I said previously this was Mother's Day weekend. I just did some preliminary layout work. The following photos just show some other angles of the work completed. 

Ginormous Deck Phase 1 complete

I have to give a lot of credit to my father for giving me the layout for the deck. He had the idea how to lay out the support and decking, both of which I think were great ideas. Using deck blocks and mounting support beams on the exterior walls saved a lot of work.

I can't discuss the construction without also thanking my childhood friend Jason enough. He is not handy by any definition, but repeatedly volunteered and worked under rather extreme conditions for nearly two months. The deck could not have been completed in time without his hard work and I can not thank him enough for his efforts.

Jason was not the only friend that helped with the construction. In one afternoon, Jason, Nick and I laid the deck for over 3/4 of this section of the deck. It was a LOT of work and it was very, very hot that day.

Here is a nice action photo of Nick screwing down some of the deck. In high school he had some experience building docks down in Stuart, FL. He gave me some great pointers during construction and I can not thank him enough for the asstiance he gave during this project. He insisted that it was just pre-payment for my help to hang drywall in the room above his garage, but he still went above and beyond.











Here is a nice photo of the first section of the deck after completion. In the background is a nice portabel gazebo we used for shade that Melissa's parents gave us. It really came in handy during construction even though we failed to take advantage of it once the sun was beating down on us. I didn't think it was possible to get this much work done in a single afternoon, but Nick and Jason proved me wrong. If only we were more than a third of the way done :-\ 

Ginormous Deck Phase 1

It all started with six little words, "Hey honey, let's build a deck". Sure no problem. I have never actually done anything like this but it can't be that hard can it? All I have to do is throw down some joists and run some 5/4 x 6 across the top of them. Easy.

"So where do you want me to build a deck?" I ask. "Just over the patio where the grill is... and connect it to the other patio where we have the gazebo." Okay. I don't think Melissa really understood the magnitude of the project she was suggesting, not that I didn't think it was a great idea. Her schedule for completing this task was over the weekend, maybe extending into the next week briefly.

I knew this was an unrealistic expectation but I could not convince her on my own. Slowly but surely after talking with several people who have actually tackled similar projects did we become aware of the amount of work involved. First came the realization of the scale of the deck that was suggested. With the assitance of the handy Lowe's deck building utility a design was born that was just shy of 800 sq ft. That's a lot of wood.

It was good to hear from others to readjust Melssia's expectations as to the time frame involved in undertaking such a task. At one of Mel's co-worker's gathering I was discussing the project with someone else that had done a similar project recently. His deck was more complicated technically since he had all kinds of crazy octagon shaped sections and our design was just squares and rectangles, it still took him over 5 weeks to complete the project. Oh my.


This was good to have other people indicate a much more significant timeframe for the completion of the project. Frequently if I am the only one to say that it will take a lot longer than what she expects my words fall on deaf ears. It's always good to have others back me up on the amount of time required to do the job properly.

Mel's dad just laughs when I tell him when she expects this projects to be complete or the amount of money she thinks they will cost.
To be fair, Melissa is always trying to find the cheapest solution to a project and always volunteers her assistance even when its something she has no experience with. It's just that sometimes she is blissfully unaware of just how much she is asking when suggesting a project that we undertake.

Armed with a preliminary blueprint from Lowes and the brainstorming of my father we began to build the monstrosity of the deck. Preparation work was not too terribly difficult. There was a bed of plants of some sort behind the sun room that had to be removed and some roots dug up, but that was about it. I also staked out the area where the deck would go as a guide. It was now time to start building :-)