Bathhouse 12

Last week we ran the new power cable and installed the part of the French drain running under the main part of the deck, thus clearing the way for me to start building the deck itself.  I started framing last Wednesday, then on Thursday I built the steps (on the opposite side of the hot tub from the ramp) and the narrow part of the deck on that side.  As you can see, I left one board out (it’s lying along the hot tub in this picture) until we take down the old awning and remove the pole.  Incidentally, if you look closely at the top edge of the picture, you can see that the post we cut away was badly rotted near the top, probably from water leaking through the rickety old awning; the bottom part, now under the deck, was still sound and strong.  Anyhow, the rest of the decking in this picture was done a week ago today, after which I took this picture; on Saturday I finished the rest of the deck out to the wellhouse, only stopping because I ran out of treated 2x4s (the local Home Depot is incompetently run and seems to have trouble keeping them in stock).  If you look toward the back, you can see that I removed most of the temporary braces; on Sunday we cut them down to uniform height and I started the process of preparing the area for the second cottage.  But you’ll need to wait until next week for that picture!