The Deck: Part 1

As I mentioned in a previous post, after messing around with different companies about putting in a deck we decided to build a 10 x 12 deck on our house ourselves.

Once again, when I say "we" I mostly mean Rich. He's doing the majority of the work!

Here's what we've done so far:

 We only rent the lot our house is on so we have to request permission to make any major changes to it. So back in May I drew up this  rudimentary plan and we submitted it along with an application and $40 (it's ridiculous; everyone wants money!). It took a few weeks but we got permission to build our deck. They just said not to cut the two pine trees in front down which we had no intention of doing anyway,

After messing around and wasting a good part of the summer with deck builders that either didn't show up to give us a quote or wanted way too much money we decided to do it ourselves.

So of course we had to get a permit from the building department of the city also!  We filled out and submitted a permit request to Plymouth Twp., along with $85 because, you know, everyone wants money. But we  got the permit approved within a week with some changes the inspector made on it.

We measured out the distance for the posts and marked where to dig using a template we created.

and rented a post hole digger.

We dug 4 post holes at 42 inches deep each! Rich was working the post hole digger and I was scooping the dirt away from the hole so it wouldn't fall back in anytime he pulled the gizmo out. Then we had to use the shop vac to suck the dirt out of the holes because they were so deep!

I won't go into all of the details but it took all day because he kept having to dig out big rocks, and by the end of the day he was beyond exhausted!

The inspector came out and declared them good!

We ordered and got all the wood and everything we need for the deck.


Rich put cement in the holes to make a footing and when the cement was dry they were ready for the posts.

Two of the posts are not in dirt but on the sidewalk in front of our house so he attached the bracket for them to sit in to the cement.

On Thursday and Friday he cut the posts to the right height and cemented them in the holes.


On Friday after  I got home from work we made the beams by screwing two huge boards together and attached them to the posts.

It took us all day Saturday to put the joists between the beams,

and today we screwed all of the decking on top.

But that's for the next post!

Until then...