🖼️
The project:
Marrying a new outdoor entertaining area with our old verandah was a great project! Working hard at perfecting gaps and mitre joints for my first time! I fear I over-engineered this one, with more stumps, concrete and bracing then the existing house!
- Materials:
Here's a high-level list of the materials I used.
I already had a big bucket of stainless deck screws, I used stainless as I'm near the ocean here and it destroys all metal!
- Tools:
- Step 1:
First job of any DIY build is to consult with your manager. We had to measure up, prepare to remove the clothesline and old garden bed.
- Step 2:
The trickiest part of a build like this (when you're not a pro!) aside from working around a Jack Russell, is marrying the existing structure to the new structure, so I did a lot of "measure twice, cut once…" (And some measure four times, cut twice…) But the stump digging started, revealing a pipe that needed to be moved.
- Step 3:
Post holes dug, roughly 800 deep, 400 out the top as the existing structure was quite close to the ground. I used a little gravel in the bottom of the post holes and I painted the ends of the posts where they would be in contact with soil. I also coated any surface that i'd cut, to help with the H4 treatment protection. After all of the posts were in place, I rolled out and pinned down weed mat to help stop weeds and grass growing up under the deck.
I also lost my marking pencil for AGES… THIS is where it turned up!
- Step 4:
Bearers bolted into the stumps, I cut out little shelves (checks?) for the bearers to sit in and used galvinised bolts to secure them. Then I set the joists in their rough positions to make sure everything was in its right place and that my levels were looking ok. (OH, and I did the weed met after THIS step, not the last one!)
As an aside, I found some handy tips in this article on the Bunnings website.
Oh, another non-pro tip: The knee protectors are gold! Choose the ones you like, but use them! Thank me later. (Check them out here)
- Step 5:
Missed a couple of photos here, but after my bearers were fixed in place, I laid in all of my decking boards and used 4mm deck spacers to make sure they were all equally spaced.
- Step 6:
After getting the deck all screwed down, we enjoyed a coffee in the morning sun and started work on the step! I'd chosen a corner step and am triggered by mitred corners that aren't level - it took lots of measuring to get everything in the right place! It's not 100% perfect, but close enough that I don't see the pieces out of line.
The forewoman checking level on my custom-length level! (I passed the test)
Having the step deck boards line up with the picture-framed mitred corner was a challenge! Youtube and the Bunnings website - great resources!
- Step 7:
All done and with one coat of finish (last photo), it will take a couple of sands and coats before the new pine starts to more closely match the older deck boards.
Last pro-tip: every job that doesn't require a dog, with a Jack Russell, has a dog.
