Porter Hall is locking in the freshness.
I built a deck out under the trees in our back yard. It took about two months, working on weekends. It was a slow, often frustrating, experience. I had never even built a bird house before attempting this. I’m quite happy with the result, though.
I took time to develop a good plan that included a few diagrams and a materials list. I went to one of those big-box home improvement stores and had all my lumber and concrete (for footings) packaged and delivered, which saved a lot of hassle.
The most important tools I used to build my deck were a post level-something that wraps around your posts and provides leveling bubbles on two sides. I bought it for the project and have since used it to build a fence. A plumb bob was useful in placing my footings. The rest of the tools I used were pretty common-hammer, drill, framing square, measuring tape. I used a post-hole digger to dig out the footings and then used round cardboard forms when pouring the concrete.
