Before and After - Plus Furniture

The deck/porch is FINALLY done! 44 days later, and we're very pleased with the results.

Before:


After:


We started placing the furniture last night, and I'm not convinced this is where everything will stay, but it looks nice for now. Still need to do a lot of accessorizing.

Days 15-18: Finishing

We're getting close to the end now - finally! The crew has been working hard on the finishing details this week, and the final inspection happened Friday. Unfortunately we didn't pass, but it turns out the inspector had a different version of the plans than what was agreed to by the engineer who issued the permit. So, it failed on a technicality and the issue should be resolved without another inspection required.

There is still a lot of finishing work to be done, but they promised me repeatedly that they would be finished, cleaned up, and cleared out by the end of the day Saturday (May 15th) but I'll believe that when I see it. I'm meeting with the electrician today to install the lighting and fans so that's the last big hurdle, and we're hoping to have the dogs back Sunday.

Day 14 - Wrapping and Skylights

Today they started the finishing work by wrapping part of the frame in white Trex material. They also cut the holes for the skylights.





No, that's not leftover snow, just a big pile of white sawdust. They've promised us final inspection by Friday and the electrician on Saturday, but with rain in the forecast I'm skeptical.

Days 12 and 13 - Roofing

It took two days to cover the rafters with two layers of materials. The first layer, which you can see on the underside of the roof, is a pine beadboard (similar to wainscot). It looks really pretty, I am very pleased with it. The second layer is a plywood covering which will hold the shingles (eventually).

Day 11 - Rafters Complete

Both sides of the roof now have rafters. They had to cut a sizeable chunk of the soffit in the corner of the existing roof to fit the support beam - we are unsure of the plan to fix the hole but hope they do something soon since it looks pretty bad.

Day 10 - Starting the Rafters

The crew worked a Saturday to start putting up the roof rafters. Only half of the roof has rafters at this point (the side of the roof parallel to the house does not yet have any). You can also see in this photo the giant 30' load-bearing logs (LBLs) which were doubled up and run from the interior corner to the exterior corner. The post against the house between the window and door is holding it up. The top of the roof structure is about 5' higher than the base of the house overhang, which gives the roof nice height but can't be seen in the picture.

Ian was outside bouncing while I cleaned the mud off the dog door, hence the jumperoo among the ladders.




I would also like to point out that it's been 25 calendar days since the holes were dug, and only 10 of those saw any progress. I'm not sure we can count the material delivery days or inspection days since no work was actually completed, so really the crew has only been here 7 days. It would have been nice if the builder had clarified that his 2-3 week estimate meant 2-3 weeks worth of actual work days spanning 6 or 7 actual weeks.

Day 9 - The Special Materials Arrive

Today no actual work got done, but a shipment of the "special order" materials arrived. This board is special because it is engineered to support the load of the entire roof structure. Because we have an overhang on our house, the roof can't attach to the house for any load-bearing purposes, so this is the creative work-around that's taken several weeks to materialize. This delivery contains two engineered boards that are 18"x2"x30'. Yes, that's 30 feet. It's hard to get the perspective of how huge these boards really are, but maybe this photo will help.

Day 8 - More Roof Framing

Today the crew added more framing for the roof structure and fixed the opening for the staircase (yesterday it was 3' wide and it's supposed to be 5' wide). The building manager was here this evening and he told us that the roof materials are special order and need to be approved by the County engineer, so there will be a lull in work for a while. The project is way behind schedule because of all of the unique (read: difficult) considerations for the roof structure. We are very frustrated because we don't think our builder is using his time and resources efficiently, but that's coming from a professional project manager's perspective so maybe I'm a bit biased.

Meanwhile, we've purchased most of our outdoor furniture and light fixtures. The dining room is getting very crowded, so I hope they finish soon. Plus, it's awfully quiet around here without Clipper and Teak!

Day 7 - More decking and the start of a roof

The deck is really starting to take shape. They started putting up the structure for the roof.

Day 6 - Decking goes down

Very exciting progress today. We can actually walk on our deck for the first time, well at least half of it anyway.

Day 5 - Another Inspection and more materials

The framing inspection happened today.



And more materials arrived late in the day.



Other than that no work was done. I'm hoping on Monday there will be a lot of progress.

Day 4 - Filled holes

Not a lot happened today. One guy came around to fill the holes and put on these strange metal caps.

Day 3 - Framing

Now we are starting to see some real progress. Today they put up the framing and put concrete in the holes. Although with no more materials in sight I'm anticipating another pause in work.

Day 2 - Materials and Inspection

Nothing happened for 4 working days. But on the 5th day the holes were approved by the inspector and the materials arrived.

Day 1 - We have holes

On a day with record-breaking temperatures (93 degrees), the crew dug 10 holes in red clay soil with rocks as big as Teak. They used manual post hole diggers and digging bars and worked for 3-4 hours digging holes from 4 feet to 8 feet deep.

Day 0 - The day before the deck work begins

After many delays the work on the new deck should start tomorrow. The deck will be 18x24 feet with a roof, three sky lights, 2 fans, composite decking, and a set of stairs. The contractor estimates it will take 3 weeks to finish and I will be posting updates as they work.