Adding a Floating Wood Deck

Building a Floating Deck

 When we bought our home, the backyard was completely useless. The previous owner made a poor attempt to enclose the patio which created an awkward and unusual space that didn't serve many purposes.

Because there was no retaining wall, mud had slowly accumulated at the bottom of the hillside which is supposed to the the backyard. 

Our plan was to dig into the hillside as far as possible to make the backyard more spacious. We didn't realize that we would hit sandstone so quickly which dampened some of our ambitious plans. 

The posts for the small retaining wall had to be jackhammered in because of the sandstone. This made the shape of the future deck a bit unusual 

The next step was to get rid of the poorly constructed enclosed wall. 

The middle supports were installed using concrete cylinder forms

One of the things I wished I had done differently was to put the deck just 1/2" higher than the concrete patio in order for the travertine that I put down to match. However, at the time, I thought I was just going to paint the concrete patio. Sheree wishes I would have taken the deck over the concrete patio, but I am glad I didn't do that because there would have been no place for the dirt and dust to go.

What I Learned From This Project:
  While the dark stain looks good new, it does not wear well. After a year, the stain made the deck look pretty worn out, I had to actually resand it and restain it with a nicer "Sherwin Williams" stain which has lasted much longer, but I feel that the natural look would have lasted longer. That is the same with the little retaining wall that I built as well. The desert sun takes a beating on the stain. Also, I had used Home Depot pressure-treated wood for the retaining wall. That wood snarled and warped a lot more than I expected. Many say its simply because I bought it at home depot.