How To Build A Deck In A Monsoon
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!
Major DIY Projects | tagged Garden
Reader Comments (5)
What an amazing accomplishment and done together. I really look forward to the days when we can transform a place into our home. We do that now in our apartment, painting accent walls and collecting antiques - but, to know it was handmade, is the next glorious step for us.
Well done!, It's certainly a deck to be proud of, the dogs look like they love it!
Yes, there's nothing quite like the feeling of surveying all that you possess and know that you built it all yourself. And knowing that you did it all in the pouring rain gives an even stronger sense of achievement :-)
The dogs do love the deck - lots of shady places for Enrique (the fluffy one) to shelter under in the summer - while Penny (the little spotted one) likes to lie on the deck in full sun and catch a tan. Seriously, we had to put suntan lotion on her this summer!
Wow what an undertaking and your dogs are seriously the cutest things ever!!!
Hi Blair, thanks for much for commenting! I do look back myself and think blimey, did we really build that ourselves?! And yes, our dogs are ludicrously cute, it has to be said :-)