Decking

The decking is now complete (save for 2 boards) A pattern was set using our standard 16' lengths. With a 32' deck we were able to use 2 boards per course, alternating our joints between the middle and the 8' from either side a 16' board cut in half offers us. The trex, being the engineered product that it is, only has "grain" going in one direction, so every other course was alternated in grain pattern as well. We used 3/16" spacers between the boards, pushing or pulling as necessary to maintain the gap. We made a story pole before we started so that we could be sure our final board wouldn't have to be ripped against the house. The waste management on this project has been superb thus far. This is most likely a direct correlation between how expensive this project has been and who's providing the funding (a.k.a. us) Only approximately an inch of material was lost from each board to square up the ends, and I consider this a free inch because all the boards are actually 16'1.5" That's free money in my book.

It may appear that in these pictures the decking's not complete, which in these pictures is true. This is not the case in real life however, as I can assure you faithful reader it is complete

Long Over-due

Finally, a long over-due blog post. 2 weeks ago we finally finished up the framing. I spent the better part of the day face down under our fireplace bump out, fastening the remaining joists to the ledger. This might not sound like a big job, but working inches off the ground, with a joist every 16" is by no means an easy job. With the joists finally in place it was time to start laying some boards! We started with our trim board. This board runs all the way around the perimeter of the deck, and covers all the end grain that one would normally see from the deck boards. The corners are mitered to give it a really nice finished look. With the sun having long set, we decided to wrap it up after only a few boards were laid.