Project Deck is complete.....almost

Hi,

I hope you all had great Bank Holiday weekends. Mine was a busy one spent in the garden helping with 'Project Deck' and throwing tennis balls around the garden for Tilly. So, without further ado, here's the story of how Project Deck reached completion (almost)

We started pretty much where we'd left off the weekend before with making sure the deck risers were sat on their secure concrete perches. This was a hard slog. Mixing the concrete up ourselves batch by batch and then digging the holes one by one with the auger. By Saturday evening, we were down to the last few holes, backs aching and losing the will to mix up any more concrete. As it was dinner time anyway and Matthew was too tired to cook, we made a trip to the fish and chip shop and then popped into B&Q to get some readymade concrete instead ready to crack on the next morning.

Sunday morning came, and the first port of call was the boot fair. The stalls were quite lacking, as was the contents. Although Matthew bought himself a dog food bin and a grass seed spreader. Some other observations made was a suspicious plant being sold in a glass container. The leaves looked very much like cannabis leaves (not that either of us are professionals in this area) but it doesn't take a genius to figure out those leaves from the shape of them. With our suspicions aside, and the car boot haul hopes looking thin on the ground, we went back home so we can get on with 'Project Deck'.

The king of the castle- Matthew atop his majestic deck looking...majestic

The readymade concrete didn't set as well as Matthew hoped as the gravel was too fine meaning that when the final levelling was taking place, the ready made concrete started to crumble. But this wasn't the end of the world as the most important part had remained and the outside deck risers were more important to place exactly correctly, the others in the middle would be ok just as long as the ground underneath was even. The deck risers then needed to be found among the newly straightened out soil so that the risers could be put on their concrete perch correctly. This is where one of the funniest moments of 'Project Deck' happened. Matthew was struggling to find the concrete among the soil and thought that the way to find them was to tap about with the spade and then pour water over the area to find them. This turned out exactly as you thought it would and left a muddy mess and made the concrete parts even harder to see! Obviously, I helped by sitting on the garden chair with a refreshing drink laughing my arse off. After a lot of time and frustration (at himself and his questionable choice) he found the concrete and placed the risers. This meant that the joists could go on with the boards so Matthew could figure out where to cut the joists. While this meant practically putting the deck together in a mock run to then take it all off to cut the joists, it was worth it to make sure the measuring was just right. We'd find out later that despite all of this, some last-minute alterations and improvisations had to be made with the end clips.

Once the joists were marked up, it was time to get out the mitre saw to cut the joists to size. With a few sweeps of the saw, all the joists were cut and ready to be screwed into place on the deck risers. Finally, 'Project Deck' was starting to take shape (by that I mean, it was no longer a muddy mess) In order to put the joists on and make sure the risers were all raised enough to make the decking area even, some assistance was needed. Assistance in the form of a few spirit levels (or "majestic spirit levels" according to Matthew- one was red. Matthew has an automatic affinity for red things) When I say a few, I do literally mean a few. 3 spirit levels all of different sizes assisted Matthew with getting every single joist in the right place, and the deck risers all risen to perfection. A perfect base makes for a perfect deck after all, and a "majestic" spirit level certainly makes for a "majestically" level deck.

The man behind the majestic-ness- Matthew with his power tool

After a little break, it was time for the last phase of 'Project Deck'- the placing of the deck boards. This was a slightly fiddlier job (even fiddlier than negotiating 5 joists and 3 spirit levels) as the screws made specifically for the composite decking seemed to not cope well with the task they were designed for. Ultimately the deck boards went on fine, but one of the spacing clips had cracked a little. It wasn't until the 14th board was laid that another problem emerged. Despite cutting the boards to how we'd measured them earlier (and we had measured them properly. I'm talking about a man that uses 3 spirit levels simultaneously), the length of the joists didn't quite match the number of boards we had left over. We figured that it must've been that the spacing was a little bigger due to some of the screws misbehaving. Basically, the joists were just a little short of 16 boards, but too long for 15 alone. With any problem, there's more often than not a solution. The solution for the end clips being that Matthew would make another hole in the end clip to allow for the overhang of the 16th board he's squeeze on.

The 16th board was soon squeezed in and the end clips were finally secured. With that, 'Project Deck' was complete (almost- the fascia is still yet to be fitted, as well as the gazebo) All the muddiness, all the concrete mixing, the hole digging and all those spirit levels were finally over and a majestic, composite deck had risen (quite literally, because of the deck risers...) from the soil. Victory was ours. There were times where we doubted whether it was going to all get done before the end of the Bank Holiday weekend, an indeed whether the weather would hold out for the finish, but everything came together nicely and thankfully the bad weather held off. The same couldn't be said for Aylesbury and other parts of the country who had horrendous rain and storms.

When tennis balls are life- entertaining Tilly during 'Project Deck'

All in all, the deck looks lovely and adds something to the garden and breaks it up a bit. All in time for the summer/BBQ season too. There's always a feeling of satisfaction once you've stood back and admired your finished project and we certainly sat atop the new deck with pride. Matthew, you did a cracking job. May the majestic deck last for many years to come.

I hope you've enjoyed reading all about the experience of 'Project Deck'. The finishing touches as said earlier will be adding a gazebo and fascia boards to make it look that little bit more majestic. Also, a fun drinking game: drink every time I wrote the word majestic. Or eat if you want. I've said majestic a lot in this post. Thanks for reading along with me if you did.

Also, while I'm here, I want to give a quick shout out and massive congratulations to my friend Jasmine who gave birth to her baby boy yesterday evening. Baby Ronnie (great name) looks so cute and I can't wait for cuddles. But for now, please all wish her a good night's sleep because she's been up for the past 2 days!

This weekend I'm heading Oxford bound again and I'm also meeting up with Jade in London to see her new pad, and also to have some Bunderson time too. I'll be back next week; don't do anything I wouldn't do!