UPPER LEVEL DECK ADDITION

When we first arrived at Our Place, the upper level deck ended just at the end of the far wall in the dining room.  Then, protecting the patio just outside the master bedroom downstairs, there was an awning that projected from the house out about 8 feet.  It was perfectly functional, but an unfortunate stroke of nature was in store!

The winter of 2007 brought with it a snow storm that was particularly devastating to the area, and especially to the homes on the lakefront!  This snow struck the area and deposited between 12 and 20 inches, depending on where you happened to be.  Our friends and neighbors called us when it happened to let us know that the weight of the snow was actually sinking boat docks all over the lake.  As hard as that was for me to comprehend, it almost happened to the boat dock at Our Place.  That big, almost flat roof had more than a foot of heavy, wet snow piled up on top of it.  Fortunately for us, the weight was spread out fairly evenly across the surface, and the supports did not buckle collapsing the whole structure.  The benefit of the weight being spread out evenly was that the weight of the snow simply pushed the entire dock straight down into the water.  At its lowest level, our neighbor reported that the dock surface (the boards we walk on) was even with the water in the lake.  That means the entire dock had sunk down about 16 inches.
Many dock were not as fortunate as ours.  However, to get back to the point of this story, our awning had a major misfortune of its own.  Snow piled up on top of the awning and pulled it off the house leaving it in a heap of twisted aluminum and canvas.  The awning, to put it mildly, was toast.

So the first project of the spring season was to extend the deck to the end of the house, thereby replacing the awning.  Someday soon we will be talking about the next step in the deck building project, but for now please enjoy some pictures of our efforts!