The Deck Is Done - 4/10/07

We had our deck built by Archadeck, locally represented by Hall Construction:







We'd talked to several different deck builders, but Archadeck gave us the best price for a composite deck, which is what we wanted.

So what's the long distance view from the side of the deck like?



This coal mine has been operational since last summer. The mine is already somewhat filled in. Apparently, some homes may wind up on top of the mine in the future. It's likely that coal was removed from this part of the neighborhood before the houses were built as well.

Luckily, this is the view from most of the deck:



It's so nice to have a back yard with only woods in view, you have no idea. Each of the first two houses we owned had other houses in back.

Daily Deck Blogging - 4/9/07

One of the two builders got sick today. so the deck wasn't quite finished today. However, it's very close!











So tomorrow, it should be finished for sure!

Of course, it's only supposed to reach 46 tomorrow, so it might not matter too much...

Daily Deck Blogging - 4/7/06

OK, so I'm a day late...

Anyway, the contractors came over for a little while on Saturday, trimmed the floor planks and started to put in the posts for the railings.

View from the deck:



View from the driveway:



It looks like they should be finished on Monday.

Yesterday, I had lunch with some local folks from TheOneRing.net. It's a board where everyone is pretty much required to use pseudonyms. It turned out that one of the folks at lunch was someone I knew slightly as she's a local tech writer. One of the other attendees was a former tech writer. Small world and all.

Daily Deck Blogging - 4/6/07

It was again very cold out for April - I think it didn't get any warmer than 35 (over 20 degrees colder than normal). It wasn't quite as windy today as it had been yesterday.

The builders made very good progress. The support beams and floor of the deck are done. I stepped out onto the deck for the first time this afternoon:



Yeah, I know, I didn't walk out that far. But, still, the railings should be up tomorrow!



Now that most of the deck is built, the storage area under the deck is going to be much taller than I'd realized. I'd always imagined the sub-deck area to be very cave-like, and it really isn't.

Daily Deck Blogging - 4/5/07

It was windy and 25 degrees colder than normal today. It reached a high of 31 (and, remember, it's April). The contractors came and worked most of the day. We've been encouraging them to use the garage as much as possible.

But it's starting to look more like a deck now because some of the floor is now in. Here's the view from the sliders:



And here's the view from the back yard:

Daily Deck Blogging - 4/4/07

The builders arrived early this morning and worked until about 4. Unlike yesterday, when it was sunny and warm, the temperature dropped from 57 this morning to about 40 and very windy this afternoon. They made pretty good progress - it's looking more like a deck now.

View from the sliders:



View from the driveway:



And the supporting posts don't go in until tomorrow. They spent some of the afternoon digging the postholes. Before they can pour concrete, a local inspector has to come out and make sure the post holes are prepared correctly and the frame has been attached to the house properly.

Daily Deck Blogging - 4/3/07

The contractor started on the deck today! We didn't expect they'd start this soon (we thought it might be another 10 days), but I was glad to see them. They expect to be done next Monday (it takes about five working days to build a standard deck).

Deck deconstructed (or pre-constructed), beginning of day one:



View of the deck-in-progress from the sliding glass doors, end of day one:



View from the driveway, end of day one:



OK, it doesn't look like that much happened the first day. Putting in the piece under the door that will help attach the deck to the house takes a while. They also cut a fair amount of wood during the day for later in the week. I expected the posts would be installed first, but they said the post installation is a day two job.