Deck Completed

With only a few days of vacation left, the final few boards have been fastened to the deck and it is now complete and in full use.

All Hands on Deck II

The 2x6 rough fir boards have slowly been scribed and fitted into all of the rock work that borders the deck. The only remaining work to be done is fit the 16' outside border pieces and complete the curved border sections on the south side of the house. (Stay tuned for part III)

Rock Wall - Slow Progress

With work on the deck being the main focus, the rock wall project has been neglected a little, but I have now placed the line of the biggest rocks to set the wall location and located the perforated drainage line. The current step is to screen the backfill to obtain some drain rock (1/2" dia+) and locate it on the pipe. Thank heavens the wall is only 120' long as interest declines as the thermometer rises.

Trees Out - Rocks In

Another project planned for this summer is to tidy up the bank opposite our garage/workshop and use all of the remaining rocks gathered from around the property to build a thigh-high rock wall that incorporates a cedar trellis. Step 1 was to have our new friend Ryan from Ryno Bobcat visit with his Bobcat, Excavator and Dump Truck. Within a very short time, Ryan removed the 9 old pine tree stumps, re-shaped the bank, leveled various piles of dirt on the property, dug a few more holes for upcoming projects, delivered 6 yards of driveway crush & 6 yards of topsoil and rounded up every possible rock to be found on the whole 2 acres.

July: All Hands on Deck

The first two weeks of July (holiday) has been spent prepping the area around the house under the veranda for a raised wooden deck. The overall plan has been to place concrete footings which have pressure treated 4 x 4's set on them, along with a pressure treated 2 x 4 fastened to the house foundation with concrete anchors. The 2 x 6 joists have then been fastened between the wood on the house wall and the 4 x 4's making way for the fir decking which is almost ready to install.

Column Caps

Over a year ago, we built a form and went through a routine of casting some caps for our rock columns. Finally, last weekend I got around to renting the gas-powered miter saw again and making the final 56 cuts. While the saw cooled off in an hour or so, it took me several days to recover. This past week, the caps were mortared on to the columns and ground smooth.

Post 150 - Rocks-On

The latest project has been tidying up the concrete foundation around the workshop-garage building. We've been saving rocks of all sizes to stack up and give the "rising out of the ground" look, which looks pretty good and actually, happened pretty fast.