Every house has its story. What's yours?

Well I had a long weekend to work on the deck and since I had to miss a fine party thrown by my bestest buddy in the whole wide world I forced myself to make the best of my time stuck at home....aww, poor Jimm!

Anyway, I continued with placing the floor which was rather uneventful, but still time consuming. Before I completed the flooring I had to grab my trusty sledge and knock down the old brick fireplace since I didn't want it to topple onto my precious new deck. After the fireplace destruction was completed I finished off the remaining few board and placed the last frame piece. 

Now I was able to begin working on the railings along the deck.

I decided to go with the sturdy option of a top railing butted against support railing. I also added some wooden supports along the underside of the top railing to avoid any dips/warps and was able to screw the whole thing down from underneath (Nothing is worse than losing a beer to the depths due to warped screw and/or screw hole). It turned out to be surprising sturdy as both my neighbor (certainly not a tiny fella either) and I could sit on the railing together between the posts without a wobble.

We bought enough wood for a couple more rows of railing along the side, but have settled upon just one row since we have a thick hedge of lilacs and some raspberries that grow along the side. I plan to use some of the excess lumber to build some attached benches along the side of the deck, but will wait to do that until after I've seen how we actually use the deck and where they would be handiest.

Here's a couple pictures of the  completed project taken during breaks in the rain today:

Next up out there is to get rid of the leftover wood, bricks and workbench. I also have begun thinking about how I'm going to go about building the new fireplace (Update: now completed and can be read at:  Stone fire pit construction). But for the next few days I'm calling it complete.

I'll post a couple pics of it all after wifey has completed painting the outdoor funiture (she said the furniture "wasn't worthy" of being on the deck in its current condition) and decorated the deck to her satisfaction. Until then...hammer on!