Seems I'm getting around to a lot of long-delayed household projects being at home so much these days. Usually just doing car stuff, but as luck would have it, the UPS guy hasn't been here in 2 days to deliver car parts I'm waiting for..... Anyhow, decided yesterday to build a ground-level deck under my main deck to replace the mud pit there (resulting from when I leveled the whole area a year ago with the intent of building a patio, which I never did because building patios suuucks...).
So, not that exciting really, but figured I'd post it up since it's not like I can call friends over to check it out lol...
Yesterday, at an eerily quiet Lowes where finding someone actually working was difficult (and the few guys working in the lumber area looked like they had worked for about 80 hours straight, so I felt bad asking them), so I filled three lumber carts with a bunch of 16-foot lumber and related stuff and struggled mightily to push them to the loading area. Then loaded it all myself. Photo since I happened to be wearing a GRM shirt...
The advantages of having a 16-foot deck on my trailer, and noplace to haul any race cars to in recent months.....
After telecommuting this morning, decided to bail out of "work" at lunch and get going on this since this is the last nice day for the rest of the week.
Luckily, my least favorite part of deck-building, digging posts in red clay soil, is something I didn't have to do since my upper deck posts were in convenient spots. Mocked up and leveled everything...
(by the way, not gonna pretend this is a "professional" deck by any means - it's more like a "as good of a deck as I'm willing to build, to avoid making things too complicated). You're welcome to critique, but I am an engineer, so at very least I know it is strong and will hold up, even if maybe I cut a few corners. And it's a foot off the ground, so not too concerned. My big deck up top was built by pros :)
I through-bolted the main beams through the posts (thankfully, I had a 10" 5/8" boring bit in my toolchest, for some unknown reason....). Since this is ground-level, I can't do stringers over the beams like a "real" deck (else it would be way above my basement door), so had to settle for strap-style hangers and long screws.
Ran crossbeams, etc
Threw down some gardening cloth to keep random stuff from growing under there, and addes some stringer spacers
To avoide taking out little kids' legs (and to match my upper deck) I angled one corner. Note the legs to the main deck are not directly across from each other, so that was another reason to do this. I did plant a 4x4 post at the corner to give support to the free-hanging edge there.
Then started planking. Did diagonal boards to match the upper deck, which is a bit more hassle but I think looks a bit nicer once complete.
Working into the evening since it's gonna rain for 3 days, so want to get as much done as possible
So here's where it stands right now. Still have some small sections to do, add a couple steps, and some cap strips to the edges. But pretty happy with what I got done in about 8-9 hours all told. I have to say, I sit in an office all day, so hauling around 1000 lbs of lumber (especially the 16' 2x6s), most of it a bit wet, so heavier, is a lot of work. I'm gonna pay for this tomorrow.....
And here it is all finished a couple days later
