Expanding the deck

I am super excited to tell you about our latest project.  Well, Mike’s project.  We love to be outside [check out our fire pit area], problem is our 12×12 deck is too SMALL.  It sounds like a nice size until add a table, 4 chairs and a grill!  Invite a couple of friends and forget it, it’s useless!!

Call me a bad blogger, because I didn’t take a “before” photo.  After all, it was so small and useless, why bother!  I took this “in progress” photo and added a few notes…..I think you’ll get the idea!

We had built a small patio using concrete pavers at the bottom of the steps to create a space for our grill!  I came up with a fun pattern for the pavers using two different sizes and filled in the gaps with small pea gravel.  The design idea was good, until you realize that your OCD husband can’t handle little rocks getting scattered about by grand kids and dogs!
Another bad blogger moment – no pic of the cute little concrete patio pavers…….whomp, whomp, whomp.

Time for a new plan.  Our first thought was concrete.  Pour a concrete patio and be done with the little rocks and pavers.  We also have a MAJOR structure issue that has hampered our design ideas.  It’s a giant basement egress window well!!  I mean,  it’s an important part of the house, however it is preventing us from building an awesome outdoor space!  If we pour concrete we could simply pour around it, right?  Probably, but I couldn’t justify the cost of concrete for a small 12×12 patio.

With concrete being so expensive we thought let’s, build a lower wooden platform deck.  Again, building around the window well, we will figure out how to cover it later, right?

Sorry, this post is lengthy, but I’m feeling like you need to know all of the issues we had with this design idea!  So remember when I said the 12×12 deck seemed big, but ended up being too small?  Ya, well now we are planning on building another 12×12 lower deck.  For what?  The grill?  (and to keep Mike from having a heart attack over the rocks).  So now, instead of having one useless 12×12 deck, we will have TWO!  Great idea………….not!
It hit me like a ton of bricks, why not build an addition on to the existing deck?  Making it a 12×24 platform and all the same height!  BRILLIANT don’t you think?  But what about that darn window well?  It will be RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of our new deck!
We first checked with the city and confirmed that the building code would allow us to build over it, however we need to keep a 2×3 opening and provide a ladder to exit.  They don’t require it to be covered……….funny……it is a big drop.  Again, we will figure out a way to cover it later!  We had some ideas that would still comply with building codes (I will tell you about those later).
For now, check out this amazing space Mike created for us to enjoy!
It has been so hot here in Iowa that we really haven’t been able to enjoy our new space but we soon will!!  Next up on this deck addition is new furniture (building plans are in the works), a very important cover for the window well opening, and a new light fixture.  Stay tuned!!

P.S. I have to throw out a huge thank you to Ryobi tools for providing us with the awesome battery operated tools we  used to build this bad boy……and that hunky carpenter in the pics……our boy Garrett!