Right now, the only pictures would be of 10 deck blocks in the ground. Once there's something being fastened together, I'll share.
The contractor that built my fence recommended that I wait a year before painting it because of moisture in the wood.
Tongue and groove is okay if it's kept dry otherwise it will warp and buckle as it swells. All the tongue and groove that I've seen used was subflooring indoors in a heated home.
depends on where you get the wood. If you get it from a place like Parr Lumber then chances are high it will have a relatively high moisture content. That's because Parr moves a lot of inventory and what you get has very likely arrived from the mill in the last few weeks, at most however, if you get lumber from a place like Home Depot, you may find material that has been in the store for a few months and is substantially dry and yeah, I know painting contractors that won't touch PT until it has cured, in place, for 6-12 months
By the way Mr. Platypus, if you have had all your lumber delivered, make sure you cover it with a tarp while it's still stacked. You don't want the sun to beat down and warp the hell out of the wood with uneven drying. Cover it with a tarp, but try and leave the tarp gapped off the ground around the stack for good ventilation. It's a little bit of a pain in the ass when you want to pull out boards, but it's a lot bigger pain in the ass to work with heavily warped wood or discard 20% of your inventory as unusable
It used to be that in the old days all wood was kiln dried. Nowadays it's hard to find any dried lumber. This change began in the 60s. I seriously doubt that you can find any general contractor who will price his bid on using dried lumber and if you do it's guaranteed he's building an expensive house.
Where to start. Explaining would depend on how much you know about the subject. For starters, you should look up joist, joist hangers, pillar footings and beams. Figure out your decking. Then look up what fasteners you'll need. Next figure out your tools. Plan your project. Go to town. I haven't done this stuff in over 50 years but that's what I remember.
maybe the platypus has too many blisters from the project to type...or, he's getting divorced because of the project
So this thread really motivated me to build my own deck. Since I’m half Mexican, you would assume I’d be good at this, but we just came home to THIS!!!
Nah...she gets everything she wants, though if we're building it ourselves, it might not necessarily be to the level of quality she might hope. For the time being though, she's pretty happy with the progress.
Yep, deck/gazebo all in one. Wife is working on building the louvered vents for the four sides of the cuppola, and then we'll still need to shingle the roof, and screen the walls, and build some doors, and... I really don't know if we'll ever get this completely finished.
