The great decking project

I’ve lived in my house for a couple of years now and I’ve always meant to get around to doing something with the garden. I’m not a great gardener, and I have too many other interests to want to spend every weekend mowing the lawn.I don’t have a very big garden, and it is, or rather was, an uninspiring patch of grass and a gravel area for table and chairs.
I say ‘was’, because this year my girlfriend and I decided it was time to do something with it. My main requirement is low maintenance. So no grass, no fast growing things that require attention.
Realising that I would likely take time to really do anything constructive I figured I’d be destructive and get rid of the grass as soon as possible, so earlier in the year I dug up, churned over, and largely buried, all of the turf. Placing on top a layer of weedbarrier sheeting. This meant that I got to the grass before spring kicked in, whilst it was still manageable. And so for the last couple of months I’ve had a back garden of black sheeting, held down with bits of gravel.

But this weekend, and this coming week we are starting the first major part of the new garden. In the form of decking. I ordered materials at the beginning of this week. and they arrived on Wednesday.

A Huge pile of wood, taking up my garage 🙂
Only after it arrived did I start to really look at the slab of concrete (that was under the gravel) that will be under the main part of the decking. And realise that it really isn’t level… in fact it’s quite a way off level. This should provide some challenges for the construction of the joists.
However I am confident that between us, my girlfriend and I will triumph in creating the best decking this house has ever seen…