My Big Winter Project

[ninnymary]

You are going to enjoy that deck. French doors opening up to it would be nice. Looks like you are making good progress.

Mary

 

[freedhardwoods]

Glad you weren't hurt when you fell through!

This is a good time of year for downtime, but probably not the most fun time to do outdoor projects.

The back of your house is set up exactly like mine. We have an 8x24' deck and I would love to expand it someday. Our house was put up on jacks when my neighbor owned it years ago and he built the nicest full size basement underneath. All that digging out made the layout of the backyard a little annoying though. Water likes to settle in that low center spot like yours seems to as well. We're hoping to have it graded out to the back with a little bit more slope for better drainage someday (There is a drain at the back door at least.) And those two hills on either side have been hard to effectively landscape. Nothing wants to grow in that poor fill dirt. I'm going to just give up and do grass.

Can't wait to see the finished deck. Party at your house?

It's low now because I scraped a little deep with the skid steer. When the deck is done and I put rock under it, it will slope away from the house like it did before.

You might try this - http://www.theeasygarden.com/threads/sawdust-as-a-soil-builder.16015/

That will be so nice to have finished, and it's a good size.
Do you typically not have snow this time of the year?

It's cold enough to snow (below zero tonight). We just haven't had much yet.

You are going to enjoy that deck. French doors opening up to it would be nice. Looks like you are making good progress.

Mary

My wife would probably like that.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

have you finished building the deck? how'd it come out? just curious since my last house had a similar sized deck. with the house we're in now we need to build the deck that rotted away many years ago.

 

[freedhardwoods]

I got the floor and 1 stair finished and stopped because I had other things that needed done. I still need to finish the other stair, the railing, and retaining wall, then level the dirt and get rock underneath. I'm also going to fasten metal underneath to keep it dry and park some of my vehicles under it.

We have always kept plenty of vehicles around and we were down to 1 car and a 1 ton pickup that is still drivable but needs several things fixed (I might start a new thread on that project). In the last 2 months I bought a 93 Buick Century, a 94 Ford full size van, and a 94 Chevy 1/2 ton pickup. There are a few minor things I need to fix on them (small rust spots, trunk lock broke, change oil on the pickup, flush and refill radiators and transmissions, etc), then do all the work on my original pickup.

I started buying vehicles just in time because the intake gasket started leaking water on our 87 Caprice a couple weeks ago. I let a local shop fix that. When I was driving it home, the radiator started leaking. I'm going to put a new one in this weekend. That's the first repairs on that car since I bought it 4 years ago.

All the while I'm driving about 3000 miles a week at work (almost 3400 this week), doing my garden work, and other various chores. I'll get the deck finished one of these days.