The Cool Blue Blog

Decked out

People have been asking for an update on the Deck project. When I last reported, the deck looked something like this

After my two weeks of vacation, where I usefully applied myself to the project it now looks like this

To point out an architectual detail, my son-in-law Dave designed this step down from the kitchen

And this past weekend, Dave and I worked on the stairs. We used closed stringers for the sides with an open stringer in the center for support.

There is still some work to be done: The stairs need a railing and I need to put a lattice, and perhaps a storage area and/or access door under the deck, but it's pretty much complete.

So that's the current status

Project: Deck

So Saturday Morning the family came out and we got to work on framing the deck. Though I designed the deck on paper, it was up to my son-in-law Dave to make it a reality.

He would have to not only know what to do, but organize the remaining three of us, who did not have a great amount of experience with major construction projects, in such a way as to become an effective crew. He did a great job.

Our first task was to set a 2X10 ledger into the concrete foundation. Here's Dave and my son-in-law Lyle doing that.

The length of the deck is almost 30 feet. So we cut to length two 2X10X16's and set them in with concrete fasteners.

First we drilled holes in the beams, used these to mark the place in the concrete, then drilled half-inch holes into the concrete. Placing the boards back in place, we pounded in the bolts which then expand into the foundation. Finally we tighten the nuts.

The next step was to bolt a 2X10X12 to the outer post, beveling the end. The posts we set before are going to also be used to anchor the railings, so the plan was to build the frame around the posts.

But that's not enough. We then cut another 2X10 to run from the ledger to the inside of the post and bolted it to the outside framing piece; doubling the strength. We did this all around the outside frame. Here's my son Stephen inspecting the work we did.

The next step was to place the floor joists every 16 inches.

And place "hangers" around each joist after they are nailed to the frame. Here's a rare picture of me doing just that taken by my daughter.

By Saturday night, we had the framing complete and some of the skirting done.

Day two; Sunday; was devoted to the decking. Here, we ran into a little problem.

But we fixed it and went back to work.

We kept working until we ran out of material. We got pretty close by about 5pm on Sunday.

 

I'm taking a little vacation time so I should be able to finish things up. Though I'll be leaving the stairs to Dave.

One more thing I should mention: a family project such as this can't be done by just the men. In order for everyone to be here, there were seven grandchildren to manage and keep away from the job site. They also had to be entertained sufficiently to keep from distracting the workers. Good thing there were three daughters and a grandmother to take on that job.

A little inflatable pool helped immensly

Oh, and one more thing: You don't want to take on a job like this without a professional nail gun and compressor. We had one thanks to Dave's employer Eric Henderson.

Good foundation

Finally, after 20 years being in the house, I am putting on a deck. The house was design for a deck to run the whole length of the back. You can see there is a door off the kitchen and the living room which, at the moment, just leads to a 5 foot drop.

Last weekend, two of my sons-in-law, Lyle and Dave, came out to help me dig holes. We rented a two-man auger from home depot and went to work on the support post holes Dave and I had marked earlier. The clay in this area is tough stuff. Good enough to make pottery from. And there were a few rocks.

And when I say help me, I have to admit the two young bulls worked the auger while I cleaned the holes and removed rocks. It was hard work but in the end we had six holes, each 4 foot deep.

A few days later, Dave came by and we cut the tubular cement forms and shored up the sides. Then we placed two of the posts and poured the cement.

We ran out of cement and daylight after that and left the rest of the post placing until the next night.

The next afternoon, we worked on the rest of the holes. We right away ran into a problem: Some of the holes were not in line with what we required. These posts have got to be in a straight line or when we do the framing we will run into trouble. So we had to remove some of the tubes, widen three of the holes, replace and repack the tubes.

Once that was done, we placed the rest of the posts, and braced them when they were true. To do that we used a three-foot level to make sure they were straight, then secured the posts to the bracing and rechecked with the level.

Once all the posts were braced, we poured the cement into the tube forms for the remaining posts.

As you can see, we did a pretty decent job with that.

Today we start the framing of the deck.

I'll keep you "posted"

Finished project

Well, since I've been on vacation I have managed, among other things, to finish the project I started in January. The goal from the beginning was to put a new floor in the kitchen; I just didn't start with the kitchen since I quickly decided that the whole West side of the house would need the new flooring. And I didn't just do the floor deciding that the new floor deserved new everythings to go with it. So I started with the bathroom, moved to the hall and closet in front of the bathroom, then the entryway and the hall leading to the kitchen. Now the kitchen is done.

Here is an "under construction" picture that will serve as a before picture.

You can see the old floor, the stripped floor, and the new floor surrounded by backerboard. Now here's the "after" picture.

Hey! The cellar has a door. New paint job, countertops and backsplash behind the counters. There's also a new sink and faucet. The next picture will highlight that

Notice the countertop, sink and backsplash. Now here is the after picture.

The new sink is black granite and is much deeper than the old stainless steel sink. Now one more picture of the finished product.

It took a long time for the countertops to arrive and I didn't want to decide on the backsplash until they were in place which is why it took so long to complete. But now it's done and I'm satisfied with the work I did.

And the moeny I saved by doing it myself.

Entry Level

As you may remember, I finished the downstairs bathroom and the ajoining hallway. Then it was on to the Entry way as I make my way to the ultimate goal; the Kitchen.

So above you can see the entry as I began work on it. Some of the tiles have been laid and you can see the cement backerboard exposed. The front door is new but my son-in-law and I installed that before Winter.

And here it is finished, well pretty much. The door in the foregound on the right is now gone as I continue up the hall way and get ever closer to the kitchen.

Here's another view.

Oh, and for a finishing touch, we bought a lamp.

The above is looking in through the front door. You can see that the cement backerboard for the hallway is already in place. As of this writing, the tile has been laid here as well and I'm well into ripping up old tile in the kitchen.

More later...

Hall Effect

Moving on from the bathroom, here you can see that I have extended the tilework into the hall in front of the bathroom.

While I don't have "before" photos like I did with the bathroom, some of the people who read this blog have actually been to my house and they know what a beating it took during the years I raised my four kids. This is a real improvement. The bathroom door is new, as are the closet doors. All new trim and molding and even the heater baseboard is new. The side door is original and needs to be replaced but good outside doors are expensive as I discovered when I replaced the front door recently. Besides, it's 20 and snowing out so I'll wait for warmer weather. For now we've just repainted it and it looks better.

We also put in a new light fixture shown here.

I also repainted the closet, put down a new floor, and rearranged the shelving.

This closet is the main staging area for Soldier's Angels stuff that goes to Iraq

Now it's on to the front entryway...

Home Improvement

So I had this bathroom on the first floor of my house that has basically been unuseable for that last five years or so. The toilet didn't flush well and try as I might, I couldn't clear whatever was blocking it. Also, it just looked aweful.

So I decided to rip it apart and start all over.

So rip it I did.

The above picture shows it partially ripped apart. The old sink and sink cabinet are ripped out. Some of the old siding is still visible as is the old toilet. Eventually that all got ripped out too.

And I found out why the toilet didn't work. Let's see I found two (count 'em) women's makup compacts, a dog bone, and a giant hair curler trapped inside the toilet.

Not good.

All the drain cleaner and snaking I did wasn't going to fix it, no sir. It had to come out.

After ripping it apart, I built it back up. First by painting the walls and then I laid down a new ceramic floor. We put up some wainscoating, replaced the sink with a pedastal sink, and a new toilet, mirror and light fixtures. After a month of painting, masonry, carpentry and electricians work, I built us a new bathroom.

Here you can see the new ceramic tile and here

you can see the new light fixture and get a good look at the pedastal sink.

All in all, it worked out pretty well and I don't think paying a professional would have gotten me a much better result. Except it probably wouldn't have taken a month to do.

Tim Allen; eat your heart out.