So in my mind the next best thing was to create a space off the front. The front door is a short distance from the kitchen, so grilling or whatever we wanted to do would be easily accessible to the kitchen. While still on my "inspiration cloud" I dreamed up a beautiful walk out deck. I was getting to excited thinking of the possibilities. Well you can imagine how much my heart sank when I started looking into the permitting process for a deck the size that I wanted. It simply became so much more of an expense and headache than what I wanted to deal with.
Plenty of people will build a large deck without a permit, (and believe me I was tempted to) but with this deck being off of the front of my house, and living within the city limits where city trucks pass by all the time- I simply didn't want to take the chance. So with that I scratched the large deck idea and started brainstorming else I could do in order to have a seating area in the front.
After plenty of back and forth I decided on a small floating deck. With so many other projects on my plate, I once again came to the issue of budget. I didn't want to spend $500 or more to build this deck and with 8' decking boards costing at least $5 each I was going to be out of $200 just for the decking. In addition, there is the cost of the 4"x4" fence posts that would cost approximately $100. Now $300 is not bad for a deck- I know, I know, but I wanted this project to be on an extreme budget. I wanted to spend a bit over $100- that's it!
I started looking at pallet decks and the awesome end results that many had when using those. This was ideal because I have access to free pallets at my place of employment. The biggest issue with pallets though, is that they can be of varying heights, not to mention varying widths- so that would complicate things even more. While I "marinated" on this idea a bit more, the idea occurred to me to build my own "pallet". This would ensure that everything was at the right width, height, etc.
I decided to use landscaping timbers for my base (more about that later) and fence boards for the decking. I was able to get the landscaping timbers on sale for $2 each! I purchased 8 with the thought that I would butt them up to each other (end to end) and create a 16' long x 8' wide deck across the front of my home!
This idea seemed that it would work great- that is until I realized how warped these timbers were! I attempted to adjust the ground under them in order to minimize the bumps and lumps in my base. Note to future self... just go with the 4"x4"x8' wooden posts. While you may have some that are slightly bowed I am confident that you will not have as many issues as the landscape timbers. Nonetheless I pushed on with adding the deck boards. You can only imagine how much my heart sank when I stepped on them and could feel the give in the board! Not to mention that because the landscape timbers had so many curves and warps in them, when I tried to put the "decking boards" over the landscaping timbers that were end to end, there was a 2" height difference between the first set of boards and some of the second point. I could feel panic setting in- WHY LAWD! Not one to be easily defeated, I quickly made the decision to move the other set of landscape timbers parallel to the first set. this meant that my deck would only be 8'x8', but it meant that the fence "decking boards" would have the support that they needed!
After finishing this portion, I stepped back and looked at my deck. It looked like a deck that cost $100- let me not lie, it looked like ya girl had built a freakin pallet in her front yard. THE HORROR! That was not the look that I was going for! I cannot stand for a project to not go how I want it to, and it is even worse when it is on display for all the neighbors to see (as-is I was getting quite a bit of looks because I am a female out there "building" a deck. I didn't want them to look at what I did and say, "she should have let a man do that..."). So getting the deck to a state that I was absolutely proud of was key! My first step was that I added pine straw to the garden that is next to the deck- that would at least cover over the ugly until I could figure something out!
From the start I wanted to add boards around the outside edge to give it a nice "finished" look. I decided to go full speed ahead with that idea, hoping that would give the deck the extra somethin' somethin' that it was lacking. Once I completed the first side, my heart absolutely soared! It looked so good! I added a 2x4 under the front overhang to have something to nail to and added my last trim board to it. When I tell you I was so giddy... I couldn't contain myself. I built a deck... a GOOD looking deck... for a little over $100! I wanted to style it (inexpensively of course!) so I picked up some items from Walmart. I considered purchasing a rug, but decided that once I stain it I will stencil a design on the boards. At any rate, she is done for now and I have to say that I am pretty proud. Despite the highs and lows of the project I feel like it came out quite well, and is something that I don't mind the neighbors seeing and saying, "look at that good looking deck! SHE built that!"
