When we last left off my deck had just been torn down and footing holes has been dug. My inspection came a day later than I expected but it passed and off I went....
With 14 holes dug the only logical next step was to ignore them and put up the second ledger board on the house. My first crack at the job was a 2' extension on the existing board which went swimmingly, but now I had to add a brand new 10' piece along with flashing and J-channel and cutting a long strip of vinyl siding which is intimidating knowing that if you screw it up replacement will be less than fun. But last week I found a break in the weather and got to work
Okay that’s out of the way. What next? Wait for a dry day, that’s what. Saturday was supposed to be a washout but the sun rose bright in the morning and I took advantage of what I thought was going to be a brief blip to get some concrete home to pour Sunday. But the sun was not to be dismissed and by 10:00 Saturday morning the radar was showing only a slight chance of ruination to my project, so I took my chance, and it paid off beautifully. With lots of hard work and back pain
To get the right depth I marked a paint stirrer, stuck it in the hole, and poured concrete until it hit at least the bottom mark. Pouring, however, is the easy job. Mixing sucks. Mixing 160lbs at a time in a wheelbarrow REALLY sucks. I only needed 15 of the 18 bags I bought.
As a reward for the hard work we went to a brewery for the first time in almost 4 months to celebrate and spend a fantastic evening on a patio that was not ours.
Then Sunday rolled around. Already in a bit of pain from the day before I woke up at the crack of 6:30, picked up some chicken biscuits and got down to it. Framed out the first half of the new deck, shown with one pergola post set
Later I finished all the joists and second pergola post, nailed the shit out of everything, back filled half of the holes with dirt, and built up the second girder
Trimmed off that long end, set all the footer posts, and added joists
Stopped for a quick bite to eat then joisted some more
I would loved to have finished the joists last night but my neighbors were probably tired of hearing my circular saw, miter saw, sawzall, impact gun, hammer, nail gun, and palm nailer so I cleaned up and will finish those tonight. Also I could barely stand and today it feels like I did 4000 squats. I have 8 joists and 2 pergola posts left, then back filling 7 more holes and I should be ready for the framing inspection. If things continue to move along smoothly I should have that done this week
Oh, about that palm nailer...
This is one of the most fantastic tools I have ever bought. I may only use it for this one job but it is worth every penny for making my life easier