Randall's Blog

The last few weeks I have been working on a new deck for our house. It's a fairly big deck for the size of the house - 16' by 28'. This is the deck - complete except for some seating I intend to add:

This is a "time lapse" movie of the construction:

I decided to make a "floating deck" because there were a few concrete slabs off the back of the house that were already floating (no foundation and not attached to the house). I got some "Deck Blocks" as a start. These are pre-cast concrete blocks made to support a deck. I dug down a few inches and filled in the hole with pea gravel to make a stable base for the blocks:

I used a tube filled with water to make sure that the far ends of the deck supports were level:

Fortunately, the slabs were just about the same height. I used a small floor jack to position and level the beams (two pressure-treated 2x8s bolted together):

I cut PT 4x4 posts to the correct length and attached the beams to the posts:

Once the beams were all leveled and supported I started on the 2x6 frame for the deck.

For the top I chose a premium PT wood rather than a composite. I really like the composites and they are easier to take care of BUT they were close to THREE times the cost. I used screws to secure the decking to the frame. It was clear from the start that I needed a special tool for this job. There are 1500 screws holding the decking on the frame and each one has to be driven to the correct depth.

I made a small guide out of scrap wood to position the screws on the decking uniformly. I also used large nails to create a small gap between decking boards.

Screwing down the decking was the most tedious part of the process so I took breaks to assemble some of the deck furniture we got on sale. We picked the right time to shop for outdoor furniture. There is a short window between when they all go on sale and they are all gone. We got a nice swing at Lowes and a table & chairs set (half price) with an umbrella at Home Depot. Debbie also picked up an Adirondack chair on sale.

I had to make steps off the deck on to the walkways as well. The next step is to make some built in (or on really) seating. We don't need any railing as the deck isn't that far off the ground but might put up some in places.

We are pretty happy with how it came out - now I guess we have to have a deck party...