The New Deck - The Floor

I've been meaning to update the progress on the deck for days and something always comes up.  Better late then never as they say, so here goes.  In the last post on the deck most of the deck frame was complete, ready for installation of the deck boards, which are 1 1/8 inch thick and 5 1/2 inches wide.  I purposely left a part of the frame unfinished to make the work area more accessible. Here is the first section of flooring installed:

Some of the old deckboards, the dark ones, were re-used.  Originally I wanted to leave the existing deck in place, but when I looked at the workmanship, or lack of, it was clear that the old deck had to come out.  I saved as much of the old wood as possible.

This is a detail of the interior post with the beam on one side and header to the ledger board.  I prefer using a beam to support the joists, it's a much stronger method, but a beam cannot extend all the way to the house.  Basically the beam is supporting all but one of the joists.

Here's another view of the deck from a different angle.  It's starting to look like a deck at this point.

At this point it was necessary to finish the frame.  After this it became even more difficult to move between ground and deck, at least for this old carpenter.  The red milk crate is my step stool. 

There are some more details on the frame in this area that have to be worked out before the rest of the deck boards can be installed.  The stairs and dummy posts (posts that are attached to the deck frame but not to earth) must first be installed.  I also put in the one and only diagonal brace on the deck, the only one that I felt was necessary as this end can potentially be subject to racking stresses since it is not attached to the house.