It's starting to look like a house again

Finally, the basement is sealed up, backfilled with gravel and looks like a real foundation. So, on to the next project! This time, it's slightly more fun since it requires less digging (not "none", but "less") and since the end result will be something we can enjoy.

The first step was to lay out the plans with Sarah and anyone else who would listen. Then I translated those plans (layout of the footprint, steps, how it attaches to the house and back door, etc) into concrete footers sunk into the ground. And that part required digging. I borrowed my friend Jeff's post hole auger, which is a truly amazing manual tool. Dig down about two or three feet, tamp it, fill with some gravel, make premix concrete and pour it into the holes. The hard part was getting the concrete-to-wood anchors to stand squared in line with each other and plumb. Considering that the deck is about 20x12 feet, I think I did pretty well. The deck framing showed about two inches of slop on one post (easily shimmed) and only about a half-inch of slop in the other direction over a total of 9 poured footers.

My friend Wayne came down from Olympia to get a jump-start on the deck. It was great having him here for two days since he has about 30 more years of carpentry experience than me. On those first two days, we built the upper deck and half of the lower deck. Crucially, we also got the stairs cut to connect the two decks. Cutting stair jacks is always so hard, but these turned out nice.

I was able to reuse almost all of the wood from the old deck. All of the framing lumber (2x8 pressure treated stuff) was in good shape and good lengths to incorporate into the new deck. Since we changed the footprint a bit, I had to buy some new framing lumber, but not much. Also, the deck boards were pretty rotten from the old deck, but I salvaged about half of them. We bought new (on sale) cedar boards for the upper deck and stairs, and just last night I drove out to boonie-land to buy recycled cedar boards to fill in the lower deck. I think the total expenditure was about $800 for all the wood (labor was free) for a 12x20 foot deck.

I spent the next day putting the decking on the stairs and building the wrap-around part of the stairs, the "Grand Staircase" we're calling it. That required some abstract thinking to connect the two sets of stairs.
At this point, we have half the decking on, no railings, good stairs and all the extra footers in place. Maybe today I'll get the rest of the decking on, ready for BYO Meat on the grill at tomorrow's potluck.