Bye, Bye, Old Deck. Hello New

[farmerbw]

LOML and I finally got tired of our boring postage size (6x12)deck off our dining room which had no access from outside. We bit the bullet and had it torn off and replaced with a slightly larger (12x20) deck, 5/4 KDAT laid diagonally, white Deckorators balusters, and stairs down to the back yard. Now all that's left is to decide whether to let it age naturally or get busy and stain it.


Before:



After, with LM (little man) inspecting!:




Brian

[TracyP]

Nice looking deck. It will be much more functional than the old one. I would put a coat of clear Thompson's on it if it were mine. JMTCW

[Trent Mason]

Cool deck Brian! That definitely looks much better than the old one.

[toolferone]

MUCH MUCH better!! How about a pic of the top side?

[Gofor]

Looks like that will do the job. Nice!

I am not a big fan of Thompson's for its weatherproofing qualities (mine is in full sun during the summer), but I do spray the underside of my deck with it each spring. Why the underside? Because it repels the mud daubers and most of the paper wasps from building their nests on it. WD40 works also, but leaves that distinctive fragrance.

As for stain, usually the more opaque it is, the better/longer the UV protection. However, yours looks to be well shaded, so you may have good luck with clear or translucent ones. Even tho it was KDAT, you may want to give it a couple weeks of dry weather before staining. KDAT can be up to 19% MC and will increase with rain, etc.

Go

[jeff...]

Nice deck enhancement - personally I don't like CCA much but it serves it's purpose and you did a nice job with it - I see a nice pine tree grew up in the time between pictures - so how long did it take you, a weekend? That's one of those supper fast growing pines - ready to harvest in a month from planting

[Glennbear]

Looks good Brian, it must have made for some tricky ladder work up in the air with sloping land.

[skysharks]

That is a really nice transformation.
I have built quite a few decks over the years and I really like the construction of your new one.
I will have agree with the others definitely let it sun dry for a bit before treating it.
I like Gofor's technique of treating the underside. and yours is really accessible.

Man I tell you lil brother the more I look at the picture I really like the new shape.
The addition of the stairs makes a lot of sense.
Plus the A/C unit looks to be more protected from the elements

You SCORE!

[farmerbw]

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I considered Thompsons but LOML wants to do a clear Cabot stain, either Heartwood or Redwood I don't remember which on, or just let it weather naturally. My big peeve was all the stamps on both faces of the 5/4 and 2x's and at least 2 sides of everything else! Only way to remove them that I'm aware of is sanding which leaves lighter spots that I'm sure would remain lighter if stained now so we're letting it go to see how well they re-blend after weathering some.

Jeff, it's actually not CCA, it's the "newer" CA-B. It hardly looks like treated at all, none of that "green" look. All said our contractor took about 3 weeks to complete, but that included some down time after the deck itself was completed waiting for shipment of the balusters and center pieces. LOML wasn't happy about having a deck with no railings for about 5 or 6 days with a 2 yr old running around! You lost me on the pine tree though, that's an Oak in the far left of the picture!!

Glenn, definitely some interesting ladder work involved and to top it off the contractor we used works alone and did all the ladder gymnastics by himself! It was interesting to see how he overcame not having a 2nd set of hands and I did end up helping him out a couple of minutes here and there just because I didn't want to see him fall while I was standing around checking his progress.

Tom, here's a couple more pics from topside.

Parting Board and direction change:




Railing:






Brian.

[farmerbw]

Thanks John, we worked with our contractor on laying out the new one and LOML was really glad to cover/hide the A/C unit and it's no where near as loud as on the old deck. We had some odd requests like not encroaching into the yard too much in one direction or too far into the natural area the other direction and we couldn't go any further over behind the garage because the stairs had to end before the electric and irrigation feed into the wall. But he figured out how much space he needed to get the stairs down and meet code as well as maximizing the span coming off the house so we'd only have 1 row of 6x posts. The angled section between the 2 sections was our idea and he was able to work that in as well.

It's actually been finished since the end of June but I've been slack and just got the pics off the camera!! So we've been enjoying it for a couple of months now, and LOML really likes the fact that it's got more room for eating and is more convenient to the the kitchen now.

Thanks again everyone for the suggestions and I may have to look into gofor's under treatment.

Brian.