Most Expensive Deck Ever

In the Spring I posted about Jason's freak accident with the deck. If you missed it, you can read about it here.

Believe it or not, his tooth could not be saved. That's right, the dentist had to extract Jason's front tooth because the nail shattered the tooth all the way up under Jason's gum line. Since the accident, J has had to wear what is called a 'flipper.' It's a temporary front tooth that pops in and out (kind of like dentures but with just one tooth on it.)

He is in the process of getting a dental implant, but it takes a long time because you have to wait for the bone to heal before the oral surgeon can drill into the gum line. It will be almost a year before the implant is complete.

Yup, it sucks but what can we do? I have a beautiful deck and a beautiful husband minus one front tooth.

For those of you who have ever had a dental implant, you know how costly they can be. . . So our DIY deck ended up costing us the same as it would have if we hired out for labor. . . And Jason would still have his front tooth!

Anyway, the old deck was small and we didn't like that the railing ran horizontally and wasn't very child-proof.  In an attempt to make the deck safer in case Noah ever got out of the house into the pool area, we wanted to install vertical rails. We also wanted more space on the deck since we like to entertain.

 

Here is the deck just before Jason was about to start working on it.
 

 

 

 

 

Here it is from another angle . . . equally ugly and unimpressive.

 

 

 

 

 

Jason never built a deck before and everyone told us it was really easy. Jason says it was as easy as everyone reports, but the freak accident(s) made it one of his least favorite projects. Not only did he lose his tooth to the deck, but he also had a drill bit break and he drilled through his finger.

 

I was starting to think the deck was cursed. 

Yeah, I'm glad the deck project is over. To be honest, it was over at the beginning of the summer but my home computer is ancient and is running extremely slowly. Now that I figured out some iPad and iPhone apps, blogging just got easier!

Anyway, our go-to guy Kelby explained everything to Jason to get the deck built.

 

To make life easier, Jason used the existing framework of our old deck for what would become half of the new deck.  First, he removed all of the old deck boards, which were in pretty rough shape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After J removed all the old deck boards, he dug post holes 42 inches deep for the new deck addition. The town building inspector had to come out to check every step before Jason could go on to the next step. After approval from the building inspector, the post holes were filled with concrete.

 

 

 

 

Kelby and Jason framed up the new 12x12 section and the new deck boards were run over the entire 24x24 frame.

 

Once the deck boards were on, Jason installed the vinyl railing.   

 

 

 

 

And here is the final deck (you can see our building permit still hanging on our sliding glass door because we have yet to have the building inspector come out and give us the final approval).

 

 

 

We still have to stain it, but you're supposed to wait a year before applying the stain to the deck boards.  I'm already stressed about the color! 

 

 

And we need to buy a larger table so that we can enjoy having meals on the deck.  Currently, we only have a small bistro table.  I enjoy having my breakfast out there each morning but if we want to entertain or have dinner out there as a family, we will need a bigger table.

 

If you can suggest where we might be able to find a nice table online at a reasonable price, do share!