I'm wanting to build a deck on the back of my house this summer and I'm looking for ideas. I'm wanting a pretty simple 12'ish by 20'ish wood deck. Budget is a factor. Basically big enough to have a large table and my bbq.
Post up pictures of your decks. Construction pictures of said deck are worth bonus internet cred.
I wish I had taken more pictures. I rebuilt my deck back in 2019 after the original fell apart. Above is an in progress pic.
I had to get a building permit for my municipality. The inspector came to inspect my footers and framing then did a final. He barely looked at what I had done. I decided not to ask questions that might cause more work for me as he seemed like he was in a hurry. I was worried about some of the code requirements for my area. I over built the framework and footers because that is what failed on my old deck.
Here it is finished. I'll ask my wife for more pictures tomorrow. I think she has some more in-progress stuff that would show the framing and footers etc.
I made this jig for the railing
I designed my deck online at Menards and had the materials delivered to my house. It was a lot of work but not technically difficult.
We did ours with composite decking and treated supports. I'll have to dig out some images. We made ours 16x35 because the 12x12 was waaaaayyyyy too small
I just redid mine. Original was a wood 16x8 and bumped it to to the one side another 14' and out 8' from there to make the original 16x12' ish. It's just big enough to have a small seating area and have an area to seat 6 at a table. Did one of the composite budget options with pvc railing, it was near the cost to do it in wood with the wild lumber pricing this least year.
I will upload some pics from my phone. Looking forward to near zero maint.
My wife sent me more pics.
That beam was a bear to get on the posts. Especially when I had to do it by myself after realizing I had mis-measure all my posts by the thickness of the beam and had to cut them all down.
You can see the hidden fastener system I used in the picture above. I would not use it again. Such a pain to work overhead. And the boards are super creaky now. Need to get under there and snug them up. I went with cedar because it was cheap and I like the look of it. I thought I wanted composite but after going to a friend's house with a composite deck, changed my mind when my daughter burned her feet on it. It got unbelievably hot in the summer sun.
We actually covered ours with deck tiles this past summer. We needed to re-stain it but wanted a different look. So far they have held up well and make the deck feel more solid.
The story of my deck, as told here last year: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/building-a-deck/169006/page1/
Solicited deck pics
Keith, do you own anything that isn't awesome? 
Man you guys do good work!
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:Keith, do you own anything that isn't awesome?
Well....
All you guys with the raised deck and kids - is the area under the deck a fort? I remember visiting friends who had a raised deck when I was a kid and it was the best place to play.
Ours is about 12 ft off the ground so it could be a fort with cathedral ceilings
Ours is just low enough where they all hit their heads now.
12 X 16' Trex. Pergola is nice but the lattice on top really helps with cooling off the hot plastic on your feet!
OK, something's going on with the new method of posting pictures, will check back later.....
Placemotorsports said:Ours is about 12 ft off the ground so it could be a fort with cathedral ceilings
I believe that is technically a castle.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Only if there is a moat
For your footings what did you guys do? Pour footings? How deep and what diameter? Did you use the premade blocks? My deck is only going to be 18-24" off the ground.
There can be a moat if you want there to be a moat.
I would recommend you start with the AWC guide: Download Full PDF
At 18-24", it'll be similar to mine in construction.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
How did you like the Toja Grid brackets/nodes? They keep showing up from time to time on my personalized advertising...
The Toja Grid stuff is excellent. It's not cheap but it was exactly the look I wanted and it's well made. No complaints once you get over the cost. If I was putting up pergolas for a living, it would probably be less expensive than a traditional design due to the significant decrease in labor.
They're sized for dimensional lumber but a tight fit helps to keep everything square, so if I was doing it again I'd start with rough cut lumber and plane it down to fit. I have a 12" HF planer that has proven to be a real workhorse.
A little late to the party but our deck was officially finished last Friday. One guy built it in just over two weeks with breaks for weather.
Having done mine by myself, those beams look like a bear.
That dude is one seriously hard worker.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
No kidding! The builder we hired said a crew would be coming out. Nope, one guy. He worked in cold and snow too. If it was warm weather probably would have been a week and a half. Great craftsmanship as well.
In reply to PMRacing :
That thing looks amazing. And even more impressive it was one guy. I would've gotten that guy a couple cases of beer.
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