Building a Raft: Part One

This morning we went over to Economy Lumber and bought a pile of materials. Notably, this lumber.

That's all the wood we'll need for the structure of the deck, the landing, and the stairs.

We started out by applying the Vycor Deck Protector membrane to the top of the big beams. This membrane is supposed to help cut down galvanic corrosion from the pressure-treated wood contacting the fasteners. It also acts as a bit of a waterproofing membrane, but this is not living space so that's not really necessary.

Noel got out the drill and put in the bolts on the big beams, as well. The first one was a bit laborious but after that he got a method working and it went pretty fast.

With the bolts in place the beams are rock solid. They were heavy and solid before but now they go NOWHERE when you walk on them.

Then we moved all that lumber into the back yard. Much of it was very wet from recent rains, and thus very very heavy. We kind of spread it out, which later turned out to not be the best idea since we needed to work in that area.

Our neighbor lent us his cross-cut saw which was awesome and amazing and everything you would ever want a saw to be. And much less fussy than using the circular saw.

We cut a bunch of wood to size, then Noel began the tedious process of nailing things together. I learned a long time ago not to nail things because I am incredibly clumsy and tend to misnail. But I am very good at clamping or holding stuff in place.

We've been calling the floor structure of the deck the raft, because it is basically one big flat object that we will attach to the beams. It would technically float but I don't want to try that one.

Our friends Kate and Tim came over in the late afternoon to meet the baby chicks and play with the big chickens. Kate got to catch a chicken for the first time, which was kind of a peak experience for her. She only got a little pooped on. I felt a little bad because every time they come over we make them help us with some house project instead of just sitting around drinking and watching TV like normal people.

They did get to enjoy the use of the laser level in the twilight, which is very romantic.

Anyway, then it got dark out and mosquitos were out, so we gave up for the day. More raft tomorrow!

posted by ayse on 04/07/12