A little bit more done...

John had to work on Saturday, our normal "building" day, but he did take the day off today, and worked on the deck for a while. Like 4 hours.  Then that was enough!

It may not seem like a lot, but the things he did today (with a little of my help), was: hang the rest of the joist hangers, hang the joists, screw the ends of the joists into the side supports, and bolt everything down!  Everything took time!  And there were lots of bolts!

Looking good!

View from above.  John's just finishing putting in the bolts on the bottom.

View from below.  Looking so good!

Lots and lots of bolts, and top and bottom and on the sides.

There are a total of 16 joists and hangers.  Not huge, but just right for us.

Building begins!

We were very grateful to Thomas and Jacob who came over and helped on Saturday.  This was the 2nd time we NEEDED help!  Probably the last time we'll actually need it, but help is always appreciated.  Especially when it lets me relax and do other things!

We got the supports and the deck frame in, as well as started putting in the joists.  We have half of the joist hangers up, and one joist.  But then it was time to quit, so we did!

Leveling the frame.

Don't you love the ladder holding one side up?  We did it this way so we could measure the needed heights of the supports.

Securing to house.

Securing posts.  Notice the hanging "flags"?  This is trying to prevent John from hitting his head, since he'd already done it 4 times.

Yeah!  It's strong!

Oops!  Forgot to cut this old support to size before we attached the joist!

Finished for the day!  Looking good!

Demolition continues...

Thomas and I got out there this morning and took down the headers, the stair beams and the decking.  Looked pretty naked!

 

 After John got home and we ate lunch, John and I went out there and continued.  There were two bolts that were coming up from the cement that had been supporting the stair posts.  John cut them down to size.

 

Then we measured and cut the headers going into the house, pre-hung them for "good measure", drilled a few bolt holes, as well, then took them down.  The top is going to be pre-built, then we'll hang it on the house and measure the posts while it is up. (Supported by ladders, people, etc.)  Since the post holes are at different levels, that's the way it is going to be done.

Here's the first cut:

Here's what the side of the house looks like now:

 Here's the "outline" of our deck, just waiting to be put up!

Next week's goal: hang this, put the posts in, and hang the joists.

Stairs are gone!

I knew John was going to be pretty busy on Saturday, and wouldn't have as much time to work on the deck, so I took a couple of hours this week and took off the stairs and unscrew the top boards.  Besides 2 stubborn screws, the top boards are just sitting on the supports.  Not very safe, right now!

THAT did not stop Nathan from getting a ladder and coming into the house that way when I invited him for dinner!  Imagine my surprise when I hear someone unlocking the back door!  I yelled out, "Are you crazy?!!"  Yep, I think that was the word!  He's been coming in through that door for over 20 years.  Why should he change now, just because there are no stairs?

Demolition begins!

Today, Saturday, May 31, we began the demolition of our old porch!  We were very grateful for the added muscles of our son, Thomas.  So glad he was there!

First, we had to remove the roof over the porch, since it was attached.  Tom and John (with me helping with support) took the roof off, then started dismantling it right there on the porch.  It was so heavy, we couldn't just throw it over.  Plus, we didn't want anything down below to get damaged!

Partially dismantled roof.

Tom helping support roof.

Inside looking out at the partially dismantled roof.

 When all but one lag screw was left, Tom and John supported the roof while I unscrewed the last thing holding it on!  Thankfully, the beams and the carport roof also helped support it.  It was VERY heavy!











They took the shingles off first, then some of the plywood, then some 2x4s, then more of the plywood, then more 2x4s.  When it was finally light enough to handle safely, they carefully put it over the side, while I directed it's fall. 

After it was down, then my job was taking it apart all the way and getting all the nails out.  Now there are just piles of 2x4s, plywood, hardware, screws and nails!

Taking off the ballisters was easy with a screw bit in the drill.  We stopped at 3:00 and next week will take down the porch and the stairs.

My strong John!  Almost done for the day.

Done for the day!  The porch is no longer safe, so it has no railing or ballisters.

Getting in the footings.

I didn't take photos on May 26th, because the "work" that we did was figuring out what we needed (drew plans on the computer), listing the supplies, doing a lot of measuring, going to the store, and ordering the supplies.  This took hours!  Then he really went to work.  He took out all the grass that would be under our new deck.  He moved a sprinkler head, so it wouldn't be spraying under our new deck.  Then he dug the post holes! We didn't put the cement in them, as we were having the cement bags delivered with the rest of the supplies.

  The supplies were delivered on Thursday, but there was no time to do anything on the deck that day.  When John got home from work on Friday, though, we mixed up the cement and poured the footings.  Yeah!

Grass removed, sprinkler moved, and footings poured.

John had the great idea to use one of our post to make sure the beam supports were straight and in line with each other.  Cool, huh?

Building our deck

Well, I didn't realize that it has been almost 6 months since I posted anything.  Oops!  We went on a wonderful vacation, a cruise through Asia, that I will just have to skip, or post something later about it.

Right now, we have a PROJECT.  We are replacing our back porch with a small deck.  Nothing too fancy or big, but big enough to put a "real" barbeque on and a few chairs.  We've been talking about doing this for over a year, and we decided that this was THE year!  Yippee!

I have to say, I had misunderstood a major portion of this project.  I thought we were going to pay someone to build the deck! Not so..... John said he was looking forward to doing the work.  So this is our summer project!  We'll essentially work on it on Saturdays, holidays, and maybe some of the extra "vacation days" that John has coming.

Here are some photos of our back porch "before" we started.

Back porch viewed from carport.

Back porch viewed from stairs.

Notice the size of the BBQ.  It's the only size that fits!

These were taken May 25.  The work begins on May 26th!