Enclosing the Shed

Now that the deck was operational, it was time to focus on enclosing the shed structure underneath so that we could reclaim the garage for my car before Luigi arrived. There is still some finish trim work to do on the deck itself, as well as staining the decking itself. But, we decided these things could wait in favor of garage space. 

The first step on the enclosure was to finish create another masonry wall along one side of the shed where the ground will slope down from the patio to the back yard. It took a few days of work for Greg to finish. 

Above, you can see the finished masonry wall with the stud framing in place. Below, you can see Greg and a few coworkers building that portion of framing. 

It's kind of a funny story how they came to help on a Saturday in mid-July. Every summer, Greg's company has a charity fund raiser, which involves a silent auction where various employees donate prizes. Some are as elaborate as a week in a time share, or a plane ride. This year, there was a group of people who got together to volunteer one day of handymen time to help finish projects around the house. Needless to say, Greg was determined to win this prize, and basically stuffed the box with $40 worth of raffle tickets. $40 for 4 people to help with house projects for a day sounds like an awesome deal to me. As it turned out, we weren't able to schedule all 4 of the at once, which actually worked to our benefit. We were able to spread some of the projects around. On this particular day, Reem and Mike were over, and not only did the help Greg with this wall, but they also painted Luigi's nursery and a bunch of trim in our stairwell! 

The shed continued to progress through the rest of July and August, and Greg started stashing stuff in there before it was fully enclosed. 

Casey and Dan, the other two of Greg's coworker/handymen came on a Saturday in August, and not only did they load the dumpster of all the constuction debris, they helped to finish all the walls and built the three doors that provide access into the shed. 

It looks like a great place to store stuff, doesn't it?

How About Stairs?

We were now halfway into the month of June, and though we could use our deck, we still had no way to get down from it. I certainly wasn't planning to jump in my condition! The race was on, as we committed to hosting Greg's family for the 4th of July, and Gina's 65th birthday party. 

But, before the stairs could even go on, Greg had to start on one of the walls to enclose the shed, that would be too difficult to take on after. It involved a masonry partition with wood framing above. 

Once the wall was complete, it was time for the stringers to go in. Originally, we thought it would save time to buy precut stringers. But, as it turned out, the ratio of tread to riser was not quite the 11"/7" standard we had used in our plans. This meant that the store bought, pre-cut stringer was not going to land on the sonotube we already had imbedded in the ground for the foundation. It was also made out of a 2x 10 instead of a 2x12, which of course, did not satisfy Greg from a structural standpoint. So, he ended up cutting his own. 

For the risers, we again opted for a white PVC trim product to keep maintenance down. 

After all of the structure was in place for the stairs, it was time to fill the last foundation tube with concrete. Greg decided not to do this one when we had the original concrete delivery because he wanted to be sure where the stair structure needed to tie into the foundation, and to make sure that the height of the footing was correct as well, 

It took more bags of concrete that I care to remember to fill that hole. 

As previously mentioned, Greg was up against a party deadline, so he was at it every night that the weather allowed, until the sun left for the day, approaching 9:00 pm. Below, he's painting the tops of the stringers before putting the treads on to help protect them from any water that might sit on that edge. 

Finally, it was time for the treads to go on!

And last, but not least, the railing. This was another complicated installation. The prefab PVC railings did not come in the right segment length for our spacing, which meant that Greg had to adjust a regular railing kit to make it work. He had to individually modify each of the plastic balusters to create the correct angle. I think it's safe to sat he did an excellent job!

And just like that, in right under the wire, the deck was suitable for entertaining!

Riding the Rails

Being able to walk out on the deck was a nice benefit of course, but it would be nice not to have to worry about getting too close to the edge. Which meant, of course, that it was time for railings. For various reasons, many of which were budgetary, we elected to use pressure treated wood for the decking. There were some really great PVC products that we liked the look and idea of for the low maintenance aspects, but the fact that they were more than triple pressure treated wood, and that we ultimately can imagine turning this deck into a screened room someday, meaning we'd be covering over the decking anyway, meant that the PVC just didn't make sense. 

With the railing on the other hand...well, the cost premium wasn't that much more. We always liked the idea of a white railing, but not the idea of maintaining it, having to paint all of those balusters over and over. So, this is where we opted for a PVC product. 

Above, you can see the sleeves that slide down over the wood posts that are secured to the deck framing. Each one had a giant sticker label, which of course, was not of the easily removable kind. My job was to scrape off all the labels, which took a combination of a plastic scraper, goo gone, and fantastic to actually get rid of all of the residue. 

While I took on that task, Greg investigated how the system snapped together to figure out his plan of attack and to make sure he was satisfied from the stand point of a structural engineer. 

He also managed to make a great mess of the kitchen and dining room will all of the parts and pieces and tools that were required for this portion of the work. Since the deck didn't have stairs yet, he swore it was easier for him to do all of this in the house on the level of the deck. 

You can imagine that I was a little less than thrilled with the sliding compound mitre saw living on the floor of the dining room for a week! Such is the life of a DIYer I guess, right? I eventually convinced him to leave that set up in the garage. 

The railings went up a few sections at a time, and we were extremely pleased with the result. We were also final able to start really enjoying the deck with our little table for two. 

The Day it Looked Like a Deck

The last weekend in May, the deck really came together, and actually began to look like a deck. George  was on hand to help for the afternoon to get all of the boards screwed into place. 

Here, you can also start to imagine what the storage shed under the deck would end up looking like. 

Raising the Roof

Well, I guess we've been so busy enjoying our new deck since July, not to mention preparing for Luigi's arrival, that I have completely dropped the ball on finishing our deck building story. Prepare yourselves for a massive deck catch up in the weeks to come. I'm going to attempt to finish telling the story before Luigi gets here, and set up some installments to post automatically while we get used to life with a newborn. Of course, I plan to drop by and tell you all about him as well.

But let's get back to the task at hand. When I last told you about the deck, I was recounting a weekend in May when my Mom was visiting, and we all spent some time preparing the rubber roofing. This next phase of work took place over Memorial Day weekend, which, you might recall, was extremely warm. I remember well, because it was the first time I got a feel for exactly how difficult it was going to be getting through the summer pregnant.

At this point, since I'm so far behind, I will let the pictures tell most of the story. Here are a series of Greg finalizing the deck framing.

Every good structural engineer has to include some cross bracing somewhere, right?

The posts above are for the railing. 

It was a challenge to drill the bolt holes for the railing posts because of the 12" spacing Greg chose for extra stability, and the potential to screen in the deck as a room some day. 

Once the framing was settled, it was time to lay down the strips of rubber my mom and I cut. Each piece was cut as a trapezoid, so when we lined up the edge of the rubber perfectly with the edge of the joist, the troughs that were created naturally sloped away from the house. 

Now, I know I wasn't able to help much with the heavy labor of the deck this summer (not that I minded much), but I did help all day with this project, in the high 80s humid heat. And it was tough! I had the job of holding the rubber on the edge of the joist while Greg stapled it in place. He then covered the edges with a special rubber tape to ensure a water seal. 

The gutter from the roof line comes down the corner of the house, where we put the deck, so Greg put in a pipe to divert the downspout under the decking, but above the rubber roofing, so the run off from the roof would flow out with the water that falls through the decking surface. 

A few days after the rubber roofing went on, our decking boards were dropped off from a local lumber yard. It was really exciting to see them arrive, knowing we would soon be able to actually stand on our new deck!