After a long wait I finally had a new bedroom built onto my house last year and this summer finally, finally was able to have a deck built on. Barbeques, sunning on the deck, backyard fun, a laundry line! All things I have very much been looking forward to and of course, adding value to my house for the inevitable sale in the future.

Last weeks post ended here: The posts for the deck had just been installed and they were getting ready to build the frame and add the deckboards.

Framing

Since I had a pro do the whole thing this project went seriously fast. On Monday there were a few holes in the ground and by Friday afternoon I had a fully functioning deck. The deck was built entirely from pressure treated wood. I would have preferred cedar, BUT, this isn’t my dream home and the cost really didn’t make sense as I would make a loss on that investment. Late Tuesday things looked like this, that post is for the laundry line:

Platform-ready

And by late Friday, I had a complete deck. This is walking up from the driveway to the side of the house. Three steps up and the bedroom door to the left… three steps down to the right into the backyard. Having the deck finished we went out almost the same day to get a barbeque. Another expense but really, decks, barbeques, backyards and summer all go together!

Coming from the driveway

Here’s a view of the final product from the backyard. Not bad huh?

from the backyard

Done!

That lightcoloured siding will eventually weather to be the same colour grey as the siding to the right. I also still need to paint the trim around the door and the roofline.

What it all cost?

All in all it cost me about $2,600 for the deck & labour as well as the skirting built around the bottom of the deck. Having a deck isn’t something that has really interested me when looking at houses but having this baby around… I’m loving it! The barbeque has been getting some good use this summer and will continue to be used regularly into the fall, I really don’t cook enough at home! I also finally installed a laundry line instead of having the dryer do all the clothes drying. The only hard part is getting the post in, hanging the line is super-easy.

Nothing better than fresh laundry off the line

I don’t regret spending the cash on having this built by someone and it has definitely been a worthwile investment and is getting good use! My next project is already underway, my bathroom renovation started yesterday, I’m currently shower-less. :/ More on that very soon!

So what about you, have you ever built a deck or decided to outsource a home project, what and why? 

If you’ve been following along you might know that my little house used to look like this, way way back when I bought it in November 2008:

TLH, November 2008

And as a reminder this is what it used to look like from the front, back 2008:

Side/front view of TLH, November 2008

That little bit porch on the side had some serious problems, it used to be the old porch/laundry room with a low slanted ceiling and foundation problems. Last summer that whole partcame off and was rebuilt, bigger,better & stronger.

As of this summer the back of my house looked like this, big change!

Spring 2012, before deck

You’ll notice that I built on quite a big piece that turned my house in a two-bedroom house rather than a one-bedroom. When I started thinking of the design for the new porch, I thought it would be great to  have a nice big bedroom with walk-on to a deck, right into the backyard. It eliminates having a backdoor but since my front sunroom functions as a large entry/laundry room now I felt that it wasn’t such a big loss and the value of an additional bedroom was much better than having a backdoor/entry space. I had a 12X10 addition built on which I finished myself after the contractor did the framing, roofing and exterior shingling.

Most projects around the house I tackle myself and I hire a pro to do the pro stuff like installing a new electrical panel, building the framing for the house or running new plumbing… I just don’t know the codes for things like that. It’s okay for me to screw up a piece of flooring… but I’m not going to kill myself trying to run electricty somewhere because I plugged something backwards. I get very annoyed when things aren’t done right. Back to that deck though..

Setting the posts

I wasn’t really looking forward to trying to build a deck, level… and strong so it would last for years. I can’t dig a posthole to save my life (I’ve tried) So this time I decided to just have it done, completely and I didn’t do anything myself except delegate and tell them what I wanted. It was nice for a change but it definitely cost more!

Such perfect round holes

The project lasted about a week, on Monday the postholes were dug, materials delivers and the posts were set in concrete. On Tuesday things started looking more like this:

Framing

Before I ramble on too long, I’m going to leave it at this for today. Check back in about a week to see the end result of the deck project!

Great find!

I also picked up some self-closing hinges, very handy when it comes to a screen door to keep the bugs out. The hinges cost me more than the door itself, coming in at about $30. The hardware is brass and I prefer oil rubbed bronze but hey… my entire house is a mixture of finishes between shiny chrome, oiled rubbed bronze and brass. I got forced into a mixture of finishes when I realized that modern door knobs wouldn’t fit on my old French doors that had mortise locks. Since then I’ve tried to choose styles I liked in the finish I prefer but it hasn’t always worked out that way.

hardware

I wasn’t really sure how to tackle painting the door, since the screen was tucked into wooden grooves on the back with thin round rubber string. I decided to pull it all out so I could paint the door properly on both sides.

I gave it a quick sand and wipe down then started getting ready to paint. Instead of trying to paint the door by laying it down somewhere, waiting for it to dry and then flipping it, painting again, waiting etc. etc.  I primed and then painted the areas where the hinges would go first, I let those areas dry then hung the door with one screw in each hinge and painted the rest.

Priming the hinge areas only

I used the same grey primer that I used for the accent wall in my bedroom.  You can not paint with red paint like this without using a properly tinted primer! I learned this the hard way. The grey primer provides the perfect base coat for the colour red that I used. Once I primed the hinge areas I hung the door (which takes like 15 seconds to do) and painted the rest of the door while it was hanging freely – so I was able to get to all sides easily! Once the primer dried I took the door back off the hinges and repeated the process with a red topcoat.

Starting to look good!

I put a thin coat on the hinge area, waited for it to try, hung the door and painted the rest of the door. Waited for it to dry, then repeated the entire process one more time with a finish coat! (If you’re still following that’s one coat of primer and two top coats of red) Once everything dried for a good day or two I got ready to put the netting back on which was a bit of a project. The netting had retained a some of it’s grooveshape from being stuck in the door and I pushed the black rubber ropes back into the grooves to stretch out the netting across the back of the door.

Pushing the netting back in

With that all finished up I installed the door handle hardware and…. voila!

I seem incapable of taking straight pictures.

I was a bit worried about the style of the door not working with the door behind it… since the exterior door has the fake french window plastic trim on the inside. But I think it works, it doesn’t look crazy.  Now, I’ll be able to leave the door open without having to worry about mosquitos getting in and not being able to sleep at night. (I am deathly afraid of those noisy suckers!) I am really happy with how the red paint turned out as well, it’s a great pop of colour when looking at the house from the backyard

Well, that’s another little house project finished. Next on the to-do list: Painting all the trim around the door and the bedroom white! I still haven’t done this after this bedroom was built and it’s high time I get some paint on that wood ! Liked this post? Check back in soon to see more pictures of my the bathroom gut. Have you done any small projects like this lately?