DIY Deck

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My installation process followed this pattern, one board on the left, then one on the right, left, rigth, etc. Here you can see as I'm progressing from the house to the yard one on my left is fouling against the pier holding the center post.

Time for another notch. Cut, snap, install.

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I was making good progress, but still some things interrupted me. Some were practical, like why is there a waterfall coming down in my work area? Oh. The gutter is a lake.




*WAS* a lake.




Some were just w.t.f. I was challenged when I talked about "half a board". Check out "three quarters of a branch".




When the project surpassed my understanding, I found new uses for my tools. Pop quiz: what do you think is the purpose of this part of my speedsquare?

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A race to the edge!

Yes, it's raining/has rained/will rain. *sigh* I don't really like working in the rain, but I like watching nothing happen even less. Let's get busy.








BOOM!

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Another day, a daylight picture, must have been a weekend... Let's move those boards to the edge, we're close to the end now (this, this is the lie that I kept telling myself, and kept believing.. d'oh!).








Anyhow, we're on the fourth of four "rows" and daylight and fair weather. Let's go!

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We're all filled in to the end, with no more fasteners, it's really, really time to stop.

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Supplies replenished, let's do a little catch up. This notch by the hose bib, that needs special attention.




Done.




And this board?! You can't see it here but it's split. Out with the divided and in with the whole.




NEXT!

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This section in front of the doors didn't get the same framing treatment because the concrete "stoop" is in the way. I have a plan for a "door mat", but I need to square up this space first. Some boards had to be cut at an angle then installed.

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Some boards got installed, marked, uinstalled, cut, then reinstalled. Eventually, I had a nice clean, shallow rectangular hole in front of the doors.

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Next is the "door mat". This section is where a concrete stoop is *just* barely below the threshold of the door. My "deck" here is very, very thin. Two layers perpendicular to each other will make cover this area. I'm using fence boards here, 7/16" thick, twice. It gives me the chance to provide a little variety and I'll be able flip this over to spread out the wear pattern.






DONE!

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I like how it looks.




Trimming up the ends left some offcuts, some of which got recycled in places where only a short deck piece was needed, like the center of this V as I approached the edge of the deck.

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The corner of the deck where I had to make a number of long angled pieces, that area needs a step. I'm making a simple platform that will be topped with deck boards. The frame will be made from the same pressure treated 2x4s the deck frame was assembled from. Here I'm lining up the cut for the two longest pieces.




Next shot is a bit of a "What is this?"




Third shot is a clue. A symptom of "What the fuck this is."




***










It's a momentary failure of attention and the safety guards built into the saw. I have "chopped" a zillion boards on this saw. Tink bought me this saw--that's how old it is. I have gotten my "money" out of it. It's just a homeowner quality/duty saw. Not garbage, but just adequate. Here's the answer to the question posed in the second pic, the blade guard that normally retracts only enough to expose the spinning blade to the wood when the wood is pressed against the fence. How are you seeing the still blade with the saw in the up position? In the first pic, the guard is covering the blade. Second pic, exposed. Third pic, what happens when you don't notice that the guard isn't covering the blade as it's decelerating. I bet I was more surprised than you are. The mechanism for moving the guard in synchony with the saw's position depends on some cams and levers and guides.... they got a little sticky and stuck *open* this time and that little nick is my reminder.

PAY ATTENTION.

OK, ok, O-K. yeesh.

Obviously I'm not that hurt, really, pfft. But, that saw Does. Not. Give. A. Fraction. Of. A. Fuck. Go on, stick your meat in there. Bzzzzt. Ooooh, damp sawdust? Who the fuck cares? It's red?! Yawn.

Pay attention.



While I'm bleeding down there, up in the roof trusses the birdies are playing house. I found a hummingbird confused and trapped under the bright roof, buzzing and pounding his head on the underside of the roof. This might be his nest, maybe not. I managed to herd him out with the broom.

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Ok, I laid out a piece of cardboard as a template for how I'd like the step to look, for placement.




Then I made the frame with the blood soaked 2x4s from the previous post.




Decked.




You may notice that I used a three six inch wide boards and one skinny one. At the start of this process when we were deciding what we wanted the deck to *look* like, I got some four inch wide deck boards and some six inch wide deck boards. We went with the six inch stock. I used one of the leftover four inchers to fill the frame nicely.

Here's the end result.

A happy step.

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Now over to the opposite side of the deck, I have started the flush trimming of the deck boards. I've put a saw guide in place and trimmed the deck boards. The scrap UNDER the deck boards is how much overhang I wish to leave to be able to apply a skirt of sorts--you'll see.






Third picture shows the 2x4 (cedar) in place, as does the fourth picture with "skirt" underneath (applied before the 2x4 frame piece.) The 2x4 is the strong piece to catch the impact of people's foot strike against the edge of the deck. The "skirt", really just a 2x6 cedar fence board, extends down far enough to trap the supporting blocks that hold up the frame on the outermost edges.

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In the previous flush trimming pictures, you might notice that my right handed saw was pushing the cut to upwards or to the right.. this is fine, except my next cuts were "behind me". And I had that damn post to deal with, the notch for which you can see in the last pic. So I gave up and moved back across the deck and started there. Now my cuts and my saw guides were moving in the same direction.

Here you can see several boards that are very long. These were ten footers, chosen because between these posts the deck frame was extended and that meant the deck got extended too, so, longer deck boards. Now I had to cut these off flush too. This needs to be a precise cut, so I have to know where the underlying frame member is, and measure from there.




I used the blade of a combination square to reach through the gaps in the boards and slide it back until it made contact with the frame. Then I made a little pencil mark. I did this on a few gaps and used them to define the line for the saw guide board I'd screwed into the deck.

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At one spot I could easily see the frame member, so I felt ok with the placement of the guide, and I zipped the ends off.






Before and after.