The porch deck

Joe has pretty much been managing building the porch deck, which leads into the mudroom/kitchen area. I've been off painting and taking care of other little projects while we wait for the rough sawn order to show up, which it did today.

The deck: We set the concrete footings and hung the ledger on the wall at the end of last week. This week Joe put the support beam in place, and then moved onto building some nice flashing that goes over the ledger. After that he placed the joists, installed the metal cross bracing between the joists and then laid in the tight-knot red cedar decking. Eventually there will be finished trim that will cover the exposed pressure treated under structure.

With the decking in place, Joe routed a nice rounded bevel around the perimeter and then we gave it a coat of clear deck sealant. It looks great. Sometime in the near future we'll install the posts and build the roof, but not until the main house roof is done. Stay tuned.

Moving along...

Today the footing was poured. Its just amazing to see a drawing turned into reality. It's like, "Hey, I drew that!" and then the next thing you know, a hardworking crew of concrete guys comes along and makes it real. It seemed so distant in the design process and now here it is being laid out and poured as a matter of fact.

For example, I labored over whether we should include a radon vent in the house. The conventional wisdom around here says unless you are over bedrock you shouldn't have a problem. On the other hand, a good friend who had a house in Barre said they had their place tested and found very high levels of radon. I decided that we should go ahead and install the vent pipe in the event we ever find we need it. Today, when the crew was setting up the forms I ran down to town, grabbed some pvc pipe and laid it in place. The cost was negligible, the effort to place minimal, and now its there. It was hardly worth thinking about in the end and I'm glad we did it. I guess I'm just dwelling on the transition from concept to reality and how that transition happens.

Back to the process: The footing was poured today, and tomorrow, if weather allows, the forms go up for the walls. Every step is exciting, but I think seeing the wall forms going up is notable for its dramatic thrust into three dimensions - up from the 2D of the footings.