The lower deck is done, got the 3rd section poured this past Monday. Gator likes to sit on it an stare at her yard.

I was looking at the weather forecast, and it seems I am just in time. the hot weather is arriving this weekend, (80F) Must be those Palm Springs folks that are arriving in the neighborhood this weekend. ;)

We were thinking about putting in some stairs, and remembered we were planning on a lower deck to land on. Originally we were thinking a wood deck, but got to thinking for the price it would rot out fast around here especially so low to the ground, so we decided to make it concrete, it will be here till the end of time.

We needed to level it out, we got some fill dirt from the local supply for $5 per yard.


We decided to keep the dirt retained we would put in a wall. We decided on a dry fit cinderblock (no mortar joints)


Then put concrete and ½ in rebar in the holes. We tied the rebar to our pad with some rebar all around the edges, with remesh in the center.



To make it a more manageable project we are pouring the pad in 3 5x5ish sections
I got some sawhorses that are rated at 1,000lbs each and staged the concrete bags near the mixer to make the pour more manageable.


We poured the first pad where Samantha is standing.

1down 2 to go


2nd pad is staged and ready to be poured.



2 down 1 to go.



We are eventually going to pour a sidewalk over to the carport, but that is a project for another time. I have a feeling the landing is going to be too short at the bottom of the ramp, but we are going to wait to extend it so we can see how big we really need to make it.

Been awhile since I updated our progress.

I got the Rim Joists in, and have all the parts to put the roof on, but we did make a change in the plans here. The roof is going to be sloped back towards the house roof, so the rain water will drip on the house roof and save us the step of putting up a rain gutter.

Been doing lots of painting on the roof rafters beams etc. Thought it would be easier to touch it up later than paint up in the air.

I put a temp plywood decking on for working on the deck roof. Louis liked helping with this part.
see video below:

Got all of the blocking between the joists installed.

The deck is starting to look like something.


Been playing with squaring up the deck joists. I temporarily used scrap wood where the rim joist will eventually be to hold the Joists. I think I finally got it.

I tacked up the flashing under the siding, but it has been too cold to caulk it.

Today was nice out, 54F, couple of down sides are, first, the clouds were gone, so I had sun in the eyes, which is rare lately around here... the other is the deck is covered with baby spiders. Boy those young ones can sure get a web going fast when they get caught up in my glasses!

We put in the knee braces. Since the deck is over 4' tall they are required. We used 4x4's.

We put the beams in this weekend. The cats really like their new toy. Louis was jumping from beam to beam, then got stuck when he jumped thru his kitty door, but the wood door was closed. Natasha on the other hand liked to cruise from beam to beam. Although after I let Loius in the house she decided she wanted to jump in too... see video below...