Dock Flooring

Recently, my mother-in-law fell through part of the dock at her lakehouse. The deck flooring was just regular 2x6 pressure treated boards, but these were put in when they built the house 30 years ago. So it's time to replace some of this flooring. We didn't really know how much, but the section where she fell through is in full sun and is a diagonal section that is 18' across on all sides. I'm not going to do the calculus on that one, just call it very large.

Stripped down to the framing

Notice the giant knot in my forehead

The finished dock floor

The worst part of this was removing the old deck flooring. It was put in with spiral nails so that rotten wood was impossible to get out. Twice I actually snapped off a piece of the board that flew up and hit my face - once across my left eye and once in the right side of my jaw. This was unbelievably painful and dangerous. If I lost an eye to this stupid dock I would be more pissed off than any other way that could happen. I brought my air compressor and framing nailer, so I used 3" coated galvanized nails to put the new flooring down. Let's hope this holds up for a while. Eventually I'll have to get down there again and replace more of the dock flooring but I'm hoping to hold off until the weather cooperates, which is roughly when hell freezes over (I'm not a fan of going to SC)

New Deck

The muscadine vines that I have enjoyed for about 7 years now have never produced any real fruit. This year I got a whopping 3 grapes. It is nice to see the vines leaf out in the spring, and my grandfather had some of the same varieties on his farm so it makes me feel connected to him. But the new porch creates a bottleneck where the vines are in the front yard, and I need something else out of that space anyway so it is time for the vines to go.  Before:

See the bottleneck?

6 vines on 3 trellis'

Time for them to come down. The shed has a flaw, namely the walls & roof. it's an enclosed building and I need a flat platform with square corners to assemble furniture outside. No limits like walls or doors. Luckily the trellis is well anchored in concrete already. Also I can clear out the far side for a new space for boat building.

First, I cut these off level

Then ran a 2x6 rim around the blocks

Ok, this 2x6 rim

I pinned these in first, then added joist hangers and set the scrap 4x4  posts into the concrete pier blocks

I needed this to come out to almost 94" - I love math

First deck board is on

All decked up!

Platform established

The final size is 8' x 12'. It went up clean, and this thing is sturdy - I mean solid as a rock. So far it has come in really handy. I screwed down a jig to build beds that are square and consistently sized, I've been using it to stage furniture and stain shelves. This is a really nice addition to the shop.

Some Random Landscaping

Since we finished the deck we've been landscaping around it with some success. Level 3 has stairs down to the ground on both right and left sides. I knew the left side needed a path to the gate by the driveway. We started with a brick landing for the stairs before building a path. On the right side, we started with some of the leftover stone for the landing, then had the idea to pour a concrete patio. In front of the deck, we wanted to open up as much yard as possible because it's easier to maintain than heavily planted beds.

Bricks are down, First edge of the path is in

The view from the gate at the driveway

coming around - notice the fucked up stairs

All of those hostas are moved and the 2nd edge is in, defining the path

After grading the path, I started pouring pea gravel

Kelley pulls out a bed for planting, mulching, and decoration

The path is poured!

Starting to layout the transition to deck & yard

The whole path from gate to deck

Planted and mulched the bed to the left of the stairs (still fucked up)

Also planted the planter beside the stairs

This side is almost finished

The bed to the inside of the path was planted with lariope and mulched

Added some banana plants to the outside of the fence. These are supposed to be hardy in NC

I rebuilt the stairs! they are un-fucked now.

On the right side, I also rebuilt the stairs there. These stones are defining the edges of the patio with those stepping stones.

By adding the skirting under Level 2, this side of the deck is finished

Also finished defining the edges, mulching, planting, and decorating this bed as well.

This set really focused on the left side of the deck. Since this we have actually planted some fescue over the remaining bare dirt. The next update I'll get some pictures of the front side bed, lawn additions, and right side patio.

We used a pebble adhesive to glue down the pea gravel in the path. I didn't really know how much product to use, and I don't think I used enough. It said to put a 1/2" layer of mixed product with pea gravel over the existing bedding (loose pea gravel), and I think that might have been a bit light. It did firm up nicely at first, but as people started walking on it the glue broke up pretty quickly. I still have about half of the gallon left over, so I'm going to try a heavier mix next time, and I think we're going to try and use the same stuff to go in between the stones in the patio. We're exploring other options for solidifying the surface of the path, I'd love a comment if you've ever tried something like that before.

Finished Deck Project

Wrapping up our deck project isn't really wrapping it up. It's one of those projects that never really finish, there's always more to do with the landscaping, or building the next patio. But now we have enough finished to show off a walk through and put a button on this series of posts. It's time to get back to building boats!

For the inside of the door, I ran molding around on the wall and put a relief inside of the jamb. We custom cut a threshold as well, then ran baseboard and quarter round. I actually replaced all of the baseboard for the entire room. Since that picture was taken, I have gotten a coat of paint on the walls and the first coat of paint on the molding. It still needs some caulk to fill in some gaps and another coat of trim paint. I wish I had sanded more as well. But it's up and the floor has been repaired and the wife is pretty happy with it.

Just outside of the door we see the ledger board for how the roof attaches to the house. There was a part where the gutter was removed and the roofline juts out. I had to adjust the height of the ledger board and overall length of the roof to accomodate this discrepancy. To the left of that white part the board only attaches to the exterior wall of the house, but the part to the right attaches to the soffitt where the gutter was attached. It was an interesting wrinkle to the roof design.

Sky chair from amazon

couch from Pier 1

stole a chair from the table set

Level 2 got the table set (gift) and the grill (Lowe's)

Of course I went for an App State grill cover

Side of the roof & screened porch

Level 3, love seats and fire pit from Lowe's

Side view of the entire system

from deeper in the backyard

View from the other side

We added a deck box to store the cushions

Other side of Level 3

Concrete tiki guy and planters

So there is still some work to go. We need to add skirting around the bottom of level 1 and 2. I still think we need to add soffitt around the roof edges, but that might not happen. Hardscape is still going into the landscape - I've got the bricks down and that is going to lead into a pea gravel path. The side with the deck box is going to get a stone patio of some kind. There's going to be lots of plantings all around. We're expanding the grass area of the backyard significantly so when the time of year is right, there's lots of seed to spread and beds to define. Until then it's all this:

Happy kids making s'mores

Youngest loves the hammock chair