Deck framing complete

The carpenters have been working on the deck for two days and they've made significant progress. They completed the framing today and I think that they'll start laying the deck boards tomorrow. 

I made a couple of last minute changes to the design of the deck on the weekend. On Friday I read Meg’s (loving albany) front porch update, and was overtaken by jealousy when I saw the ingenious way in which she had her ginormous city-issued garbage bins concealed. Her carpenter cleverly built in a seat at the end of her porch, and stowed the bins under it (see post here). I added it to my Pinterest account so that I would remember it when I started thinking about redoing our front porch, which needs some work in the near future. 

When I was relaxing over a glass of wine Friday night after putting the kids to bed I realized that I didn’t have to wait for the front porch, I could do the same thing on the back deck! Thankfully we have a very easy-going contractor who doesn’t mind making changes on the fly, and he designed me my very own magical garbage bin-hiding seat. Right outside by back door for easy access even in the winter. 

So the plan for the deck (14' wide x 12' deep) is to have 6' privacy walls made with horizontal wooden slats on either side, and a glass railing across the front so that the view of the yard is not blocked from inside the house. Running along the side of the patio next to the door will be a 30" deep, 12' long bench under which the garbage bins can be stored. We'll be able to lift the bench seat to access the bins from the deck. 

We don't have a lot of space between the edge of the deck and the fence, so the area under the seat will be divided into three bays, each with two ~2' wide doors that swing open. This will give us easy access to the whole 12' of storage area. We'll also have access through these doors to the lower storage space under the rest of the deck. It's not very high, but will be good for things like the winter tires. The 12' run will give us plenty of space to store our two big recycle containers, the garbage can, two green waste containers, and hopefully the boys' bikes.

The stairs will be 4' wide and will be aligned with the opening of the sliding glass door. We decided to recess the top step into the deck so that the run doesn't protrude so far into the patio. 

I'm still working out the stairs and the railing that we'll use. I'd like a glass handrail, but Alan seems to want to go with something more substantial. I need to get back to work on Pinterest as we need to make a decision pretty quickly!