Darrell & Sharyn

We have used the rafters above the garage for storage of empty boxes for a while. It has always been funky figuring out which large box to put down first and then awkwardly stack the smaller boxes on top. Since we had all those left-over boards from redoing the decks, we chose to put some of them to use. We attached them with only two screws each and spaced them widely. They made the storage area far easier to use and larger. A single pic follows.

Just like the back deck, the front deck needed a little loving. It wasn’t quite as rotted but it was getting things all splintery. So we went ahead and redid that one too. It went much faster as we had our learning curve on the back deck.

Pulling out the nails.

Pulling up the old wood

Putting the outside pieces on.

First board in!

Halfway done!

Darrell working with his new saw.

Morgan was helping Daddy get the screws.

Since we had the boards off the deck, Darrell did some minor work under the deck. He used some rebar and wood to make a wall so the garden bed doesn’t keep dropping soil under the deck.

And the final product!

We are super happy with how the decks turned out. They were really nice to enjoy during the dog days of summer and now that it is raining and snowing, it is nice to be able to let the kids go play on the decks and not worry about much more than how cold/wet they are getting.

After getting the deck on, Darrell moved the drainpipe so we would have better access to the space under the front deck. Before on the left and after on the right.

Last winter, we realized that the decks both needed to be redone. The back deck was starting to rot and we weren’t fully trusting that the kids wouldn’t go through it if they played on it. It was on the back of our minds for awhile until July. In July, Morgan was crawling around out front and crawled all over the front deck ending up with splinters from his knees down to his toes. It took weeks for us to get them all out via soaking. That is when we decided it was time and they needed done sooner rather than later. We went ahead and got permission and put on Trex decking so there wouldn’t be anymore worries about splinters. It took us about 3 weeks to do both decks, but we were only doing it after Darrell got home from work because we were busy each weekend traveling to different cities.

Back deck shots: L – view from under the deck. R – wood while measuring distance between studs

So first things first – pull out the nails and remove the old wood

Then go shopping to get all the new wood. This was only half of it because it was too heavy for the van.

Then – replace the joists that were rotting, add new joists making the gap just right for the trex decking, and begin to place the new deck pieces. And rope your dad into helping when he has a load that goes through and stops for the night. 🙂

Then clean it up and place all of your patio furniture and grill back on and you have a beautiful new deck that you can enjoy without fear of splinters.