So, I couldn't resist. Once I got to thinking about the photo that I could take from atop the garage roof, it was all over. I knew that I could capture the whole thing and I hadn't really done that yet from any previous angles.
So, I rather nonchalantly scaled the roof to our outdoor closet, quickly walked across the top of our garden wall, and stepped up onto the roof of the garage to get this photo. Getting down, however, proved to be a bit more difficult. My old fear of heights tried to revive itself. It took me close to a full minute to get myself to step down the 5 or 6 inches onto the wall from the garage roof. I seriously considered just jumping down to the driveway. Why does that seem safer in my head than coming down the same way I got up? Either way, I worked it out. I told myself to quit being stupid and just did it. And, you know what? It went fine.
I took this photo as soon as I got home from work yesterday, so it shows zero of the work that I did last night, but at least I took the photo in the daylight this time. Last night, I got the two other sections of privacy fence installed. I still have to put the rails on top of all four sections, though, so the privacy fence isn't done just yet. I also, got two of the six sections of railing done. They turned out nice and sturdy, just as a good railing should be.
So, in the next illustration that I GIMP'd together, the red is what I got done last night that the above photo doesn't show. The blue items are the things that I have yet to do. So, in addition to the railings and privacy fence top rail, I also need to build a gate for the small north staircase to match the privacy fence. (If you click on either photo in Firefox or IE, it will bring up the photo large and let you toggle back and forth between the two. Pretty cool.) And, I'll be pulling off some of the siding so that I can wire up and install some outdoor lights, one on each side of the back door. I wasn't going to originally, but I think that I will also install some permanent wiring in conduit and run a GFCI outlet to the tree. We'll run some white Christmas lights around the tree for ambiance lighting and the outlet will let us do that. I will even run it through a switch from inside so we can turn it on and off like a porch light. Also, I will run some speaker wire hookups just below the soffit on the back room so that we can play music from the stereo inside and select the outdoor speakers when we want to listen to music out there.
Oh my goodness! This deck is going to be awesome! :)
Here's a
quick link to the next deck update blog.
2 comments:
Levi, that looks great - I found your blog while searching for information on laying decking in a herringbone pattern. Any advice? I am doing a 20x21ft with a "W" shape. One specific question is how far apart were your joists under the overlapping part of the herringbone? I was going to put a 2 inch gap between 2 2x8 (my deck is raised about 8ft so I am using the 2x8 joists) thanks - good luck!
Thanks, Dean. Glad you found me! :)
Where you plan on making your end points connect to form the herringbone pattern, place two joists with a 1" gap. This creates a 4" wide rail which just perfectly makes the entire deck board rest on a joist from corner to corner (assuming that you're using the standard 6" deck board which actually measures 5.5"). It'll be super solid.
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