Yesterday I shared our garden inspiration board. Today I’d like to share some photos of one of our biggest garden projects – building the wooden deck.

I had the bright idea that we’d build the deck over the summer, when the weather would be warm, and we’d both get nice tans in the process. So we duly ordered a pile of wood from Atlantic Timber in Altrincham in early June:   

How attractive is the shack in the corner of the garden, by the way?

And then the rains began. And it kept raining. And then rained some more. Meanwhile, the wood sat in a soggy pile on the grass, silently mocking us.  

After three solid weeks of rain we decided we weren’t going to let a heap of wood get the better of us, and headed out into the monsoon with British resolution to Just Get On With It. 

Here’s how Alice and Andre versus Deck went down: 

After about six long weeks of hard labour, we were finally done:   

Pretty nice, eh? Two hard winters and one backyard wedding later, it still looks great. Even though the dogs have worn a path down the middle of it while charging daily from the kitchen to the back of the garden to have some stern words with the neighbour’s cat. Oh well, nothing a liberal application of decking oil won’t fix. 

I’ve got some deck-building tips that I’d like to share with you – but it’s Friday evening and the weekend is calling me, so I’m signing off for now... back next week with more details!