We decided that the junk stored next to the garage is completely out of control and will be eradicating that tomorrow. Dump run?

Home Tour Madness
In two weeks (April 26) our house is going to be featured on the neighborhood home tour. Over 1000 people will be walking through…. gulp.

I have a to-do list longer than my arm.

I’ll give you more details on that later.

Item 50: Build Deck
Previously we had a crummy set of dilapidated stairs leading to our back door.

After some poorly planned landscaping we ended up with a dirt circle. Seen behind me in this picture. On the upside it was a good place to finish furniture.

We hired a contractor to build the foundation of the deck, but I wanted to have a hand in it, so I decided to lay all of the decking and install built-in benches.

Hidden Deck Fastener System Thingies
We decided to use Eb-Ty deck fasteners and avoid holes in the top of the deck. They are fairly easy to install.

1. Cut biscuit slot at joist intersection.

2. Drill screw into biscuit.

The real evil thing is fixing bowed decking. For that I used a Cepco BoWrench: Very cool tool that hooks onto a joist and lets you straighten out boards.

So the deck laying is easy, but time consuming; about two sixteen-footers per hour.

Benches
I drew up a plan for built-in deck benches based on a drawing from the Sunset Deck Book.

I tested a few locations.

I notched out the 4×4’s to sit around the beam….

…and bolted the heck out of them with 1/2” carriage bolts.

I did something new this project. I printed my Sketchup Drawing’s full-size, glued them onto plywood and made templates. Very cool use of Sketchup.

Template for Rails

What’s a project without a new tool? My new Ridgid OSS smooths the curves.

I spent many nights working on this project. Here I am last Sunday under the flood lights. The short rails were attached with deck screws covered by plugs. The long rails were attached with pocket screws.

I built a little jig to hold the top pieces at 6” cantilever.

Plywood spacers set the distance between boards.

More night Work.

!!
in the rain.

Almost done now… Just need to finish the plugs.

Deck ends have been cut square after this picture was taken

Next up
Refrigerator Panels.

Finally, I got out to the shed and cleaned it out. No before pics, but trust me it was hellish.

We almost broke our legs getting in and out. Very tired now.

We spent WAY too much money having our garden “landscaped” last year.

The little voice was telling us, ” No plastic edging.” But our landscaper would not abide. “It’s gonna look real nice.”

Finally Kristin and I tore it out today. We are going to let the grass spread to the back. Freedom!

The gardeners are going to kill us.

Post edging