When Mark and Nicola Roberts bought their house in a quiet residential Burlington, Ont., neighbourhood five years ago, they did so with the understanding that they were taking on a project. The roof was good and the foundation was structurally sound, but almost everything else about this
50s-style red-brick bungalow their first home together was up for grabs. Last spring, with a new kitchen and basement in hand, and a comfortable relationship with the employees at Lansing and Home Depot well established, they decided it was time to tackle the deck.
Having a nice deck is important to us because we are outside all the time, says Mark. And our house is not exactly large, so any extra entertaining room is welcome.
In fact, the house was already outfitted with a deck. But it was small, unfinished and highly quirky. The previous owner had turned one of the bedrooms into a sunroom, and added a sliding door onto a 10' x 12' raised platform. But the deck was too small, especially once they d outfitted it with a patio set. And its positioning sacrificed a 6' x 6' nook of backyard space, abandoned and unused on one side of the deck. A wildflower garden was planted there soon after they moved in, but the couple always regarded that little patch of land with regret for its underuse.
Image at left: The old deck was too small and its awkward placement left a small corner nook in the backyard abandoned and unused.
When Canadian Home Workshop announced its Dream Deck contest last spring, the couple knew the time was right to tackle the deck.
For a town lot, the Roberts backyard is pretty big. It features a couple of fruit trees which had succumbed to rot (they took one down and are in the process of trying to save the other) and a collection of pines mark the edge of the backyard. Shortly after moving in, they added a board-on-board fence to replace the three different styles that had previously outlined the property. All that was left was the deck.
In a perfect world, they decided, they wanted a fair-sized area that would make good use of that empty space, and do so on a couple of levels so that the kids could get down to the backyard easily. And they wanted a hot tub. The first order of business? Putting the wish list to paper. With Nicola serving as the idea fount, Mark, who happens to be a graphic designer, set about to producing all manner of linears and sketches.
She was very practical about what she wanted done,
Mark recalls.My job was to make it look good, and make it fit in.
At the end of June, the couple was delighted to learn they had won the contest. We were elated, says Mark. But then, under the shadow of a September 1 contest deadline, the panic set in.
Image at left: The new deck makes excellent use of the available space and achieves one of the Roberts'
prime objectives: more room for entertaining outdoors
July
After arranging a vacation schedule that tacked holiday Fridays onto every summer weekend, Mark felt ready. Job One was wrecking the existing deck. A neighbour helped him rip all the railings off one day, and peel off all the old decking the next. He maintained the existing framing for the main section of the new deck. Around the same time, they moved the garden to another part of the yard.
Next, Mark called about securing a permit. As it turned out, the deck could not extend to the property line if it was any more than 2' high. So they decided to keep that edge of the deck on the low side (about 14" from the ground), and build their levels up in the middle (the highest point is about 3' up). After that, he arranged for all the utilities to come out and mark where their underground activities took place, and ordered the first phase of wood and cement. Now he was ready to start work.
Rather than rent the equipment and tackle the foundation stuff himself, Mark chose to hire a couple of guys to come in and dig and set the anchors for 13 postholes. The $170 he spent, he says, was well worth it. The day after they left, Mark erected the posts himself.
The next weekend, Mark invited his brother Cory, who lives in Waterdown, Ont., and his dad Wayne, who lives in Simcoe, Ont., over for some pizza and beer. A certain amount of manual labour was expected in return. Both men are
finesse types, Mark explains, and those skills were valuable to him. I'm more of a hacker. I like to bang things together and get them up quick. Together, they framed the main deck and the lower level in a weekend. The 6'-round hot tub, whose much anticipated arrival took place around the same time, was set in place. It was, Mark recalls, a bit tight. He had to do a little head-scratching to make sure it fit.
With all the lumber from the first order used up, and the planking from the old deck doubling as planking in the lower section of the new deck, the first phase of the project was complete. Mark filled the tub and jumped in.
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