The new deck

Back in May we started a new project - building a deck on the front of our house. We already have three decks, you say? Well, yes. But we have no central air and spend a lot of time outside. Building a deck on the shady side of the house was much cheaper than installing central air, plus, it is the best view for watching summer storms roll in (a favorite pastime in the Nelson household.) Building this illusive deck proved a bit more work than we initially thought, however. First things first, we had to get the old cement step out.

Step 2: digging a 15x9 foot hole 12 inches deep - we hired out for that...

Strep 3: Hand digging eight 4-foot holes for the concrete footings. This step was not fun. As an active participant hole digger, I can tell you that this was a long and tedious process. Luckily Bruce came over to help us level and pour the footings. We would have had a pretty crooked deck without his help!

Evan helping me rake the pit.

Jonas sporting some shade. It was a scorcher on Saturday! It was well above 90 in the sun and fairly humid.

Becky and Evan admiring the progress.

Now comes the "easy part." Derrick was a trouper and came to help us three days in a row! We would probably still be working on it if it weren't for his help. Poor guy just stopped by to say "hi" and got roped into helping out!

Evan helped out by picking some crab apples (birdy num-nums) off of the front tree with a needle nose pliers.

Hooray! All finished!

The boys enjoying a celebratory cold beer after a long, hot, exhausting weekend.

Next summer we will be adding the walls and attaching it to the house to make it a front porch. I can't wait (well, yes I can, because it is going to be a lot of work.) We are enjoying it as a deck for now. As a fun note, while we were away at the hardware store yesterday picking up more supplies, two older gentleman pulled up at our house and began taking pictures. Derrick was there and started up a conversation with them - it turns out that their father grew up in this house in the 1900's! He worked at RW Pottery as a potter and used to ski to work in the wintertime! Isn't that a riot? I really wish I had been home - we dug up an old piece of pottery while building this deck and it would have been neat to talk with them about it. Just one of the neat things about living in a really old house. :)