Deck-2001

by Dave Sullivan

Wes and Nell decided we should have a deck on the porch, and Bill put together the rough drawing. I bought a book about building decks and found a used telephone pole to use for decoration. These pictures show how the project went.

Barb and Dave arrived in September 2001 at the cabin with a load of materials. They bought the telephone pole for $75 and cut it into a bunch of shorter pieces.

Look at the planter box made of brick at the front of the porch. This will have to be removed in order to build the deck.

Dave was exhausted trying to dig the holes for the two main poles that will hold up the wind screen. Digging the first couple of feet was fairly easy -- then he had to chip through the hard-pan soil.

The Sullishak sign gets moved from the flag pole (seen in a photo above) to the new wind screen pole.

Nancy and Mick arrived next. Mick tackled the job of demolishing the brick planter.

Here you see Nancy working with a shovel to level a support block. Bill has arrived in the background.

Mick also installed the remaining decking for the wind screen.

We've completed installing the floor joist on 12" centers. We decided to build the deck out of Trex ... a product made from plastic and sawdust. Trex isn't as sturdy as real wood, so we needed lots of joists to support it firmly.

Bill, Mick, and I struggle with the details of installing the decking correctly.

It looks like Dave and Bill just stood around thinking. There was hard work even though it is not shown in this photo.

Bill attaches a piece of Trex with a wood screw. We used Phillips head screws, and they weren't easy to install because the bit kept popping out of the slots.

All done! Nancy relaxes on a bench built from scrap lumber and decking.

Everyone poses for a group shot on the new deck.