The Completed Deck

Here is the completed deck. The only thing not done is a bit of paint around the pre-primed pine skirt boards (the white boards you see), the customer was to do that themselves. Other than that, done deal. Speaking of the trim boards, they are a great way to dress up your deck a bit without spending to much and they are easy to install. One thing to remember is to allow for the width of the trim boards when you install your decking material, in this case 5/4″ thick by 6″ wide pressure treated pine decking. You want the edge of the decking to hang over the frame and trim (box and trim) about 1″. This is helps with weather protection, as well as being more visually pleasing.

Also notice how we built the deck approximately 7″ down from the thresholds of the french-doors. By leaving a step-up from the deck into the house (7″ is a comfortable stepping distance and meets code requirements) you add additional protection from rain and particularly snow affecting the structure of the house years down the road. If you have enough space from your door threshold to the ground you should always add this step (between 7″ and 8″ is a comfortable step and meets code requirements for steps), even 2″ or 3″ is better than nothing (there is no minimum riser height for steps, just a maximum).

The Azek kick-boards are also evident in this picture underneath the french-doors. Pre-primed pine or other composite boards besides Azek could have also been used. Azek boards aren’t cheap, but the area directly below the threshold of a door always takes a lot of abuse so the more protection you provide the better and composite materials do not rot so obviously they are they best choice for a kick-board. Don’t put siding under your door. Sure, you CAN do it, but it won’t last as long as the other siding that surrounds it.

You can also see how the single step we built for this deck tied beautifully into the concrete pad we discussed in the previous part of this series. We also installed some lattice on the open end of the deck. Being aesthetically pleasing is only one of the benefits of lattice, another is keeping the critters out.

Looking for some more info on decks? Here is an article about the concrete footings for your deck by Paul from Homeowner’s Blog. If you need some more info on decking materials you can visit Renovationtrends and check out an article they have up. I will also be getting into decking materials in-depth soon enough.

Pouring The Concrete Landing For The Stairs

Ok, now it’s time to pour the concrete pad that will serve as the landing for the stairs. As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, this is a much bigger landing than we would normally use for deck stairs. Because this deck is low to the ground and will only have a single step we decided to make it go the entire length of the deck. Aesthetically, this was definitely the way to go, as you will see with the finished product.

Sometimes when doing concrete landings for a deck we will build the stairs first and temorarily support them and then pour the landing last. Doing it that way avoids any possible issues with the stairs and landing lining up perfectly, which can be tricky when dealing with long staircases. That method was not an option in this case and would have created more issues than it would have solved.

In this picture we see Harry applying the edge to the pad. He is using a concrete-edging-tool for the task. This type of edging tool does a beautiful job of creating the edge and leaves you with a nice rounded edge for your pad instead of a square one that is bound to chip. Because this is such a long slab we will also indent lateral lines into the pad every 4′ or so with a special tool, like the lines you see in concrete sidewalks. These lateral lines called control joints provide a weak point that allows you to determine where the concrete will crack over time instead of nature. The ground shifts, it’s a fact, and all concrete pads develop slight stress cracks. The application of control joints, aggregate underlayment and re-bar are essential to a creating a beautiful concrete pad that will stand the test of time.

Rd.com (Readers Digest) has a pretty good article on installing your own concrete sidewalk/walkway here. It’s the same idea when creating a long stair landing.

Next I’ll show off the finished product.

Framing The L-Shaped Deck

This is a great shot of the almost completed deck frame, and Harry posing. This deck was framed 16″ on center using 2″x8″ pt (pressure treated) southern yellow pine, which also happens to be the most common and one of the best exterior framing materials available. While 2″x6″ stock would have satisfied code requirements for our maximum spans, we chose 2″x8″ for the added structural stability and to reduce deflection (bounce).

There are still a few things left to do on the frame as it is pictured. You will notice that there is only a single box making up the perimeter of the frame. The ‘box’ is the perimeter of a floor-system frame, usually made from the same stock that your joists are made up of (makes sense, as you will be fastening your joists to at least one side of the box). We always use a double box for our decks, you don’t have to, but again, it adds to the overall structural stability of the system. If you leave the second layer of the double box off until the end of framing, this gives you the opportunity to face nail the joists through the face of the first box layer. The nails commonly used for framing are not long enough to penetrate through a double box and provide a proper fastening system. That being said, joists that are being ‘hung’ on a box, such as this (and most decks), should never only be fastened with nails. To properly fasten floor joists hanging on a box they should be fastened with both nails and joist-hangers.

Aside from completing the box, the concrete footings still need to be poured. After giving the footings enough time to cure the 4″x4″ pt posts will be installed from the footings to the bottom of the box and the temporary supports can be removed. Always use PVC or z-rated galvanized post-feet between the concrete footing and the pt post. The post feet will properly anchor the 4″x4″ post to the concrete footing and prevent it from deteriorating over time.

We’ll pour that long concrete footing slab next in part 3.

Pre-Deck Construction Preparations

Here we have the preparations for a pt (pressure treated) deck underway. The vinyl siding has been removed from the lower portion of the walls to allow for the deck to be properly anchored to the exterior of the house with a 2″ wide pt ledger-board such as the ones lying on the gravel in front of the french-doors in the picture.

Those french-doors, by the way, are a beautiful solid pine 6′ wide series from Andersen. Also notice the black strips below the 2 Andersen doors. Before the doors were installed ice-and-water moisture barrier was applied to the rough openings of the doors, taking care to lay over the Tyvek underlayment to provide maximum protection against moisture and the elements.

Gravel aggregate, a few inches thick, has been spread on the ground under where the deck will sit. Laying down some gravel is particularly important when you are building a deck that will sit close to the ground such as this one will. The layer of gravel aggregate will help in preventing plant growth and moisture build-up underneath the deck.

The 4′ concrete footings that will support the weight of deck will be poured into those yellow sona tubes you see in the ground. Sona tubes are great for giving you a strong consistent structure for your footings. Why 4′ deep? Here in New England you have to get below the frost line with any sort of base-structural support, such as our concrete footings for the deck. Going this deep prevents the footing from shifting and cracking, insuring a long life or your new deck.

Lastly, we have the trench located in front of the main row of sona tubes in the picture. This will provide for the long concrete landing that we will be pouring for the stairs coming off the deck. This customer wanted long steps going the entire length of the deck. It was a lot of concrete for a landing, but it sure did look good when it was done, as you will see.

Next up: Framing the deck.

Here you can see the exterior of the addition. The lumber materials you see on the ground are for the deck we were about to begin construction on that would surround the addition.

Now if you can look at this picture as three separate structures, you will see the original house on the left, the original garage on the right, and the new kitchen addition in the middle with the two french doors. Before the addition the garage and the house were separate structures. We tied them together with the new addition. You would never know. Everything went seamlessly.

Notice the two small windows that are located above the roof line of the addition. They were not part of the original design of the addition. Originally there were two full size windows located there. The customer, however, decided that they wanted to extend the original distance that the addition would come out from the existing back wall of the house. Of course by do that it meant that the height at which the roof met the back wall of the house was increased. A flat roof was not an option here, so as a result we replaced the full size windows with the small rolling windows you see pictured to allow for the increased height in the roof. The customer was happy so we were happy.

Up next is the exterior pine deck that wraps the new addition, finishing off the project.

This is a close-up of the kitchen island at the Franklin kitchen addition, already being used as you can see. You can see the breakfast-bar on the backside of the island. The kitchen island as well as the rest of the cabinetry features dark granite countertop surfaces. The sink as well as the dishwasher are also located within the island.

As I mentioned in the previous article, this island is highly customized. The customer had chosen maple cabinetry and we used maple plywood to enclose the back and sides of this island. You remember that 2″x6″ frame sitting in the middle of the room in part 1 of this series? That is what we used to create the breakfast bar and run our rough electric and plumbing through.

We are done with the interior of the kitchen at this point. The hardwood flooring has been installed and finished. It’s a bit in the distance, but, if you look at the doorway on the left side you will notice the tie-in area that I had mentioned in the last post regarding the hardwood flooring. It matched beautifully.

This is a unique almost minimalist design with regards to the cabinetry and island layout. Most of our kitchen remodels usually involve custom cabinetry, however, the budget on this project didn’t allow for that. These cabinets were ordered as standard sized base and wall units from one of our pre-built cabinet manufactures and offered considerable savings over our custom cabinetry offerings. The center island is heavily customized and I will discuss that in the next article.

You will notice a large post and beam in the middle of the room. We removed almost half of the back wall of the 1st floor of the house and replaced it with laminated beams after we had built the addition that extended the kitchen out into the backyard.

Here you can see the hardwood flooring partially installed. On this project we were going to be tying our new hardwood floor in with an existing hardwood floor. They met in a wide opening between the new kitchen area and an existing hallway. For this reason we did not go with a pre-finished hardwood flooring product, we finished it post installation to achieve the best possible match with the existing floor.

You will also notice a rough 2″x6″ frame in the middle of the room. As you will see in an upcoming post, this frame allowed for the creation of a raised area of the kitchen island that serves as a “breakfast bar” type area. Notice the rough plumbing withing the frame as well. By putting the rough plumbing there, as opposed to up-through the base-cabinet unit that would house the sink, it allowed for more storage area underneath the sink.

At this stage we are about halfway done with this project. Sorry, no pictures before this point.

Here is a great picture of clear-spanning roof frame trusses. What clear-spanning means is that the trusses span from one side of the structure to the other. There are no support posts to get in the way anywhere within the room the way that there would have been if we had gone with a beam to support ceiling joists.

Trusses are great for creating a space that is wide open with no visible support posts. They also don’t typically cost more than a traditional ceiling-joist/roof-rafter style framing technique. The reason is that 1 truss replaces 2 roof rafters and at least 1 ceiling joist. Also when using trusses you avoid the need for a ridge-beam and a support beam(s) and post(s) for the ceiling joists.

Because of the typically large nature of trusses sometimes a crane is required to install them, however this cost is still usually offset by the quick installation of the entire roof system.

With many styles of roof trusses you will lose some or all of the attic space that you would of otherwise had with traditional framing techniques. Most truss manufactures can, however, offer solutions that will still give you a usable attic. These truss systems may cost a bit more but usually not prohibitively.

This is the backside of the Bellingham addition. This particular project I designed to bump out on the back and be slightly recessed in the front.

On this job we were responsible for the plans and engineering, the foundation, the framing, window installs, and the roofing. This was a fairly straightforward job, just a square structure with dimensions of 28′x28′. One highlight of the project was clear-spanning roof framing utilizing engineered trusses. I will show an image of those and discuss them in the next post.