Posts Tagged ‘deck’
Summer of backyard projects
August 1st, 2009
I’m so behind on posting pictures here or really even talking much about our Never Ending Backyard Project, as I call it. Let me catch you up!
Years ago when we moved into this house we had visions for our backyard. Building a deck was one of those visions. Then we had major drainage issues, we are talking flooding our entire yard! Each summer after Spring left us, we’d be calling/emailing up the builder of our house to get the landscaping company back out here to try and fix it. We went through various “quick fixes.”
Last summer they finally came through with putting in a French drain. We weren’t happy at all about it going through the center of our yard, nor were we happy that they only replaced a putting green section of our yard (when it was all pretty much drowned out from the rain/ flood) so we fought them a bit. More sod was replaced and more seeding was done. They assured us that this was “the” fix and all was done. Of course I wanted to believe that but I just had this gut feeling it wasn’t.
This Spring rolls around and instead of flooding the left side, we are now faced with flooding the right. This was the original good side of our yard really and now our grass was nearly dead! ARG!
This brings me to the deck vision. We put off this deck vision over the last few summers due to – drainage issues, having a baby last year and well finally this summer dove into that head first. (regardless of the issues!) I think we actually just threw ourselves into the project and haven’t turned back.
Carl, our most wonderful next door neighbor/surrogate family member had drawn up our deck plan last summer but …again, that didn’t happen. Well, he came over in May and was out there measuring this and that. Next thing I knew he had this fancy smancy detailed drawing of the deck, explaining it to me…(he might as well been speaking French to me!) and I knew we were in good hands! He made up a material list for us to take around and get the material estimates so we could try to figure out the best deal + estimate out the small fortune this would cost us.
Without too much boring details. The materials were ordered – we went with Pressure treated wood for all our supports (this thing isn’t moving and is rain friendly haha) and Composite Timbertech decking (hello low maintenance!). The boys had the framing done in about a day and 1/2. My FIL was over with Carl & Patrick in the morning helping out the most tedious task of measuring and reassuring, leveling and re-leveling. Our most wonderful friend Sam (we have lots of most wonderful people in this post I realized) came over to help and relieved my FIL. They had that thing framed so quickly and were slapping deck boards on in no time!! I was impressed! The boards went on in one day, although I think what we did to Sam was borderline Slave Labor. In my defense, I did try to keep him fed and watered with adequate nourishment…in fact I even tried to make sure he had brownies and anything else he needed!
From there we have been on a whirlwind of projects! The deck, which seemed like this huge monster project really was just a small start in some ways to what we’ve done since June. This post looks insanely long to me so I’ll save the rest of the details and do a short run-down below!
We now have~
Raised Cedar Bed built next to the deck as you walk out of my house onto the deck for my future Herb Garden!!!
So much more left to do but it’s a start!
Posted in house, pictures | 
Tags: backyard, cedar raised beds, deck, house, landscaping, pictures, stone raised beds, Timbertech | 
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