All Decked Out

The construction part of the deck is pretty much done! I'm so glad I don't have to worry as much about little people falling off. As you can see it still needs a good power wash and painting. The stairs still need to get vertical balusters too.

 Before

Progress

 I threw this on so you could see how short the other railing was compared to Dax.

 

Another Before

Progress

The start of the deck remodel

We finally got started on a project we've been meaning to do since the first day we moved in-- the deck. One problem with the existing back deck is that it's one story high and the railing is only 32 inches tall.  This is an issue because most residential building codes say the height should be at least 42 inches tall.

The second problem is the railing is horizontal slats, not vertical. That fact makes it a very nice latter for the boys to climb on. Just last weekend they were having fun doing a paper airplane contest off the deck and Dax would not stop climbing up to the second slat and hanging over the edge. It was pretty scary. Needless to say, the deck is getting a makeover and will be up to code and more-- we made it 46" tall--aka Porter boy resistant (I almost said Porter boy proof but honestly they can scale pretty much anything).

The deck before...

Progress

The deck railing is also nice and sturdy now. The previous deck railing was only nailed in. For our fixed up version everything is screwed in and it won't budge at all, even with only that one part done. As you can see in the pics we are also being eco (and budget) friendly and reusing what we can. This is as far as we got in a half a day off working on it. Now the weather is bad! Hopefully we get a warmer day soon to finish it up.