Our two day marathon of deck construction started Saturday morning with a trip to Lowe's. For the past few days, Jas has been digging the holes and filling them with concrete, and with a nice weather forecast for the weekend we hooked up a trailer and headed out with a long list of lumber and materials to purchase. After a couple of hours spent filling three carts, we purchased all our supplies and loaded everything on the trailer. 
As soon as we got home, Jas constructed his "water level" to aid in the construction of the posts to support the deck. He used some tubing we purchased at Lowe's, along with some pvc pipe leftover from the house construction.
This little thing was awesome! Because the ground slopes away from the house, we knew that all six posts were not going to be the same height. So we filled this with water, and Jas used the level of water in the pipe to determine the height of each post. It was so cool! As Jas stated later, there was no way we could have built this thing without it. We obviously don't own a level big enough to span 16 feet, so this was really the only way to gauge the height each post should be.
After we cut all the posts and attached them to the concrete, we started on the beams. These massive boards had to be attached to the posts. The beams are bolted to the posts, and then additional bracing was added after the joists were placed.
Jas dug the water level out, and then we started the framing. He had most of the joists done before supper, and the rest were finished that evening.
After all the framing was completed, we went ahead and laid out all the deck boards so we'd be ready to go for Sunday. We finished up after dark, so I don't have a good shot of the deck as it looked when we went in for the night. But it was so nice to accomplish so much in one day, especially since we didn't start construction until after lunch!
The next morning we worked on the decking. We took our time, placing each board where we wanted it and making sure we liked the overall look.
I pre-drilled the ends of each board, and Jas came along behind me and attached all the boards with screws. Jas prefers to use screws over nails, so the entire deck is screwed together. Before he attached the deck boards, he added quite a bit of extra bracing to the frame. This thing's not going anywhere! As he announced this afternoon, only an earthquake powerful enough to swallow the deck whole could damage it. :) The afternoon and evening were spent building and attaching the steps. We have a simple three foot wide set of steps leading down from the house, and then a much larger six foot set of stairs off the deck.
And here's the finished structure. We are SO proud of this project, both in how quickly it came together and in how hard we worked to get it done in one weekend. Our muscles ache tremendously (plus we got sunburned Sunday), but the feeling you get when you design and construct something yourself is truly awesome. We finished up too late to get the patio furniture out, but we plan to do that Monday evening. We did set the grill up though after I took this photo. I'll post a completed photograph as soon as we get the furniture set up.
Now I realize that this deck may not be everyone's cup of tea. But it is exactly what we wanted. It ended up being a few more inches off the ground than we had originally planned (mainly due to the slope of our yard), but other than that it is all we were looking for. We don't like railings, so you won't see any on this deck. We like the modern open look, so the steps and sides will stay the way they are. Our plan is to add some flower beds to the sides when we landscape, and eventually we will probably build something to camouflage the air conditioner. But right now we are tickled pink with our new deck and can't wait to use it!
