Home Improvement

Any of you fuckers clever with carpentry? This is my new house. New construction (we move in 3 weeks) which is why the yard is dirt and whatnot. Anyway, that's the "deck" that the builder went with. It's 12x12, and ridiculous, and is one of the first things I need to deal with. I'm not really sure what I want to do to it though - the right side of the yard (looking at the house) slopes towards the garage, and the left side has the dryer vent, hose spigot and the central air unit. So my options are to build out towards the garage (meh) or straight out.

I was thinking railings on the sides and two steps down to a decent sized patio, but I am an unoriginal bastard and would love to hear some better ideas.

Erronius_sl said:

Not sure if it's just me, but I can't stop staring at the siding.

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Looks nice. ~2500 square feet?
Is the Attic finished space? You have a good angle there for a bedroom (I have low standards being in MA.)

Erronius_sl said:

Not sure if it's just me, but I can't stop staring at the siding.

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I had the same thought. Is that vinyl? Is it hung well? It appears to have...undulations between the two leftmost lower story windows. Make sure there isn't a lot of play where those shadows are, that shit will come off in a wind storm pretty quick.

As far as the deck, go toward the garage. You can put taller supports in and make it whatever height you want. And I always recommend against two level decks. Just make it level so you can put the epic long table on it and have a huge, great party. Alternately, leave the deck exactly as it is, and make it steps down on all sides, and put a lower seating area of stone or cement and make it as large as you want. Makes it look intentional that the deck was built small, as it's just an access to the larger, lower area.

If it were me, I'd take that deck off completely, and start from scratch so it doesn't look like a small deck was built and then fixed later.

lurkingdirk_sl said:

I had the same thought. Is that vinyl? Is it hung well? It appears to have...undulations between the two leftmost lower story windows. Make sure there isn't a lot of play where those shadows are, that shit will come off in a wind storm pretty quick.

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The siding is fine in person, it's just the camera making it look odd there. I blame Steve Jobs and iPhone hipsters.

Seventh_sl said:

The siding is fine in person, it's just the camera making it look odd there. I blame Steve Jobs and iPhone hipsters.

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That's good news. Go and give it an extra slap in the saggy looking places, just like you do to the wife. Just for good measure.

lurkingdirk_sl said:

That's good news. Go and give it an extra slap in the saggy looking places, just like you do to the wife. Just for good measure.

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If I'm sure the house is fine, should I slap the wife anyway?

Here's another pic - it's from the appraisal, which is a super compressed PDF full of pictures taken with what appears to be a camera phone from 1996. The central air unit is in kid of a lousy spot too.

Don't slap the wife. Unless she's in to that shit.

Hose spigot and air conditioner confirmed in shit location. You had a lazy and cheap contractor.

Yea that is a really, really terrible place for that AC unit.

Yea, you always put them on the side of the house if possible. Whodoesthat?

Also, maybe things are different now but is that house not a bit large for a single zone and one unit? Maybe the way they plumb/control these things is different now, though.

Aye, we'll almost certainly be moving that unit. I'm not sure if it's part of the local code or something in the HOA for the community, but it is definitely a shit spot. I'm pretty sure lurkingdirk has the right of it, just a lazy contractor. The house is awesome, but there are definitely a few WTF things like this that we'll need to change. Price was right though, and the neighborhood/school system/commute is all awesome so shit like this I can deal with. I didn't mean to plug up the improvement thread with my lazy ass contractor's nonsense, I just wanted some ideas for my deck, lol.

I'm thinking for the time being, steps on all 3 sides down to a patio is a winner of an idea. Something I can get by with for a summer or two before just replacing the whole thing.

What kind of dropoff is to the right?

Deck looks smaller then 12x12. haha. I'm building a 10x12, swear its larger.


Did you say where you live? not sure if you need to dig sonotube footings. that low, probably not, but still might if you get frostheaves.
I would go off to the right towards the garage. Given its so low already, I would seriously just consider no deck, and all patio. 12" deck as stated, silly to me.
Build a deck around an pool if that is a possibility some day.

Other needed info. Where does the sun cross over? Like, my sample WIP deck. Sunrise is off the E corner of my house to the right you can see, sunset other side of of the house. House faces NW. That deck will get full morning sun, full Noon sun, and shade in the afternoon. during winter, sun is lower. And will get a bit more shade at all hours, due to tall Southern Pine trees.
My FRONT porch has a roof. gets late afternoon Summer sun, but shaded most other times.

so, make note of sun, and consider if you want a pergola, screen, canopy, etc as well. Full on sunroom, or 3 season room? possibly a deck for now, that will be later upgraded into a sunroom.

yeah, siding/roofing bowing is clearly just .jpg compression.

It might be smaller than 12x12, I have the builder's plans but they're for a "similar house" that's like 99% of mine. Home inspection is on the 6th, so I can re-measure it then, but either way it's one of those things that I want to just do something decent for the time being and then in a year or two redo it the right way.

Adding some stairs is cheap and looks reasonable, whereas if I do a patio I'd want to do it right (pavers, fire pit, etc) instead of just a slab of concrete. Moving is friggin' expensive, all the little bullshit adds up so a 5-10k backyard makeover isn't in the budget just yet.

Appreciate the advice/input bros. The place is in NH btw, so I'd do sonotubes, but the more I think of it (and listen to you lads) a set of stairs down to a big awesome patio is sounding better down the road than a deck a couple feet off the ground.

Seventh_sl said:

It might be smaller than 12x12, I have the builder's plans but they're for a "similar house" that's like 99% of mine. Home inspection is on the 6th, so I can re-measure it then, but either way it's one of those things that I want to just do something decent for the time being and then in a year or two redo it the right way.

Adding some stairs is cheap and looks reasonable, whereas if I do a patio I'd want to do it right (pavers, fire pit, etc) instead of just a slab of concrete. Moving is friggin' expensive, all the little bullshit adds up so a 5-10k backyard makeover isn't in the budget just yet.

Appreciate the advice/input bros. The place is in NH btw, so I'd do sonotubes, but the more I think of it (and listen to you lads) a set of stairs down to a big awesome patio is sounding better down the road than a deck a couple feet off the ground.

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Could also just be giant house, with 12x12 deck, and zero landscaping, etc, making it look much smaller then it actually is. Still not huge mind you, but a decent size, and not just a landing.

Caliane_sl said:

Could also just be giant house, with 12x12 deck, and zero landscaping, etc, making it look much smaller then it actually is. Still not huge mind you, but a decent size, and not just a landing.

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Yeah it does look about 12x12. The doors are ~6 feed wide and there is at least 6 feet spread between the left and right sides of the door.