Federated Handy People

An effective way to build a deck is a style I call “Slab-On-Grade” which is a problem solver for a lot of situations and a bit of a cost saver.

An important part of deck fabrication is to design it to never fail under “live-loads”, which translated to English is… it doesn’t collapse while you have it full of guests dancing to The Macarena.

Use the controls in the photo browser below to see the progress as it happened.

Tight Fitting The Pit

It's a bit more difficult of a carpentry job than it looks to transfer a large curve onto a small board in the right horizontal place and at the right point of length. This job went better than expected leaving only 1/1-inch gaps between the decking and the bricks for the firepit.

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If the wooden beams supporting the deck are touching the flat ground, you cannot fall down. When a deck needs to be supported in the air by wooden columns, it’s a much different piece of engineering. Above is an example of such a deck.

In this situation, we also covered the tiny side yard with a wooden walk path to get rid of the hard-to-maintain place that didn’t grow grass, did grow weeds, and made the dog’s feet muddy every time she came back in the house.