Decked Out

We have a deck! Again. Although the previous owner of our house claimed to be "handy" the pathetic excuse of a deck said otherwise. Although it looked big and impressive, it literally moved when you stepped in certain spots and boards were beginning to pop up. 
The first step was ripping up the old boards. Dan was going to use the existing joists but was going to work with his Dad at making them much more secure. 
Deck before:

We recruited the help of our friend Dan for the demolition of the deck. You'll notice a gazebo stand in the above picture. I listed it, along with 2 covers, on kijiji for free and had like 20 responses in a 5 minute span. Everyone likes free! It was not in good shape and one of the covers was ripped so I didn't care to make any money off of it. 

What a happy demo crew!

Good-bye old deck!

After lots of hours and Dan suffering from a bit of dehydration, the new deck is mostly done. Thank-you to everyone who helped rip up boards (Dan B), pulled up nails (Mom C), drilled in boards (Tina), kept munchkins out of the way (Yay me!) and of course Dad C who made sure Dan was on the right track with absolutely everything. I think it looks great!

 The deck is a bit smaller than the old one but is also square unlike the old wonky shape. Dan has started some posts since we clearly need a bit of privacy but that will be finished later. He already used a week of vacation on this!

After careful consideration, we decided to run the boards in two different directions. We saw it in a Home Depot ad and it looked quite good. You'll notice our deck box. That was another new addition this summer.

Who wants to come over for a beer on our new deck?!

xo
Meg