Deck: It starts
Earlier this summer, the beginning of June to be precise, we bought a pergola at Costco. K had been eyeing one and, par for the course, she envisioned our house needed a back porch upgrade from the dilapidated old sun sail the previous owners had left. Last year, maybe in anticipation or some sort of foresight, we ripped out the warped and falling over 4x4 posts they had plopped in the ground to hold up that sail. Basically, it was time for an upgrade. Of course, also par for the course for us, what started as, "Let's buy this pergola because it's on sale," escalated quickly. Our deck was too small, by all of six inches or so. That meant we needed to build a bigger deck. Also, it's never as easy or as simple as that. With the wave pattern of Trex from a deck that was built without enough support, we knew we had another project on our hands. Step 1: Rip up 80% of the old deck in our attempt to level all of the joists. So we did, back in June. We decided to split t...
