Mace and I were enjoying a glass (or two) of wine last night when Mace spilled some of it on the deck boards. That lead to a conversation about how happy he was with the deck material and it also came out that the material we used was 100% PVC, not the composite that I said in my previous post. The difference is that composite is “open cell” which means that it can get stained (from red wine perhaps) and it fades in the sun. The 100% PVC material is “closed cell” which means it won’t stain, fade, and has a lifetime guarantee. Thought I would mention that correction. On to the post!
Week 7 of deck building was focused on getting the stairs and landing built and the new electrical for the sconces installed. There are codes for the stair treads and risers and every riser has to be the exact same size distance (within 1/8″) in order to pass inspection. If you don’t meet that then you get to rip it out and do it again! We have a landing as well and that step down is also included as a riser so the math started there when Mace was building the design. Here’s his plan for the stair treads.
Here is the foundation for the landing, cement was added after the structure was up just like we did during the deck structure phase.
Mace’s friend Chad was able to come back and help us again and the boys put on their tools belts (swoon!) and got to work and within a couple of hours had the stringers (which support the stair treads) installed and the landing framed.
This shot also shows the nice double boarder detail. You can also see in the outer row where there is a seam between two boards which is where a railing post would go. The length of the deck boards was just a hair short (and they were 20ft, not 18ft like I said previously) for a seamless run so Mace strategically placed the seam where a post would go so that it would be mostly concealed by the skirt around the bottom of the post. He is very on top of details like this to make the finished product look great!
Look at that team work setting the railing post!
The landing also posed a challenged because it was lower than the rim joist the rest of the deck tied into, so instead we had to attach it to the cement foundation block. We had to use a special fastener to secure the landing to the beam in the foundation block and the basement window was something Mace had to design around so that it didn’t cause issues with installation. This was actually something Mace did at the tail end of the project.
Then they were ready to start laying the stair risers and treads. Since the width of two deck boards would be too big for the riser they took the time to cut them both down so that the seam was close to centered (instead of way at the top or bottom if they used one full width) and the rounded edges meet in the middle (instead of a round meeting a flat which would jump out visually).
Here are some install shots and paying attention to the details def made for a nice looking finished product! And yes I would be the one filling all in the screw holes with the plugs at the end of the project.
There’s always one last stair to do! They didn’t get to laying the landing boards so that was still on the list but we could technically walk up and down the stairs, yay!! Koburn would not.
The new electrical was also run during week 7 so we could hang some lights on either side of the slider and we added the siding blocks. Time for me to go shopping for lights!! We also added electrical outlets because you need music during parties and you can never have too much power!
On the inside of the house we added a new outlet for three switches: the flood light we needed to add back, the new exterior lights, and for the deck and stair lights (love these now that we have them!). It was 2 months of work to get us to this point and while we were still a long way from being finished we no longer felt the endless pressure of feeling like we weren’t making any forward progress like we did during the deck boards.
Opmerkingen