During the summer of 2001, we had our old deck attached to the back of the house, removed and replaced by a new deck.

The contractor was an excellent craftsman, and reveled in working in mahogany rather than pressure treated pine, although it probably took him a lot longer than he had planned, with fastening each plank from underneath rather than from above.

The old deck was pretty small and non-descript - in fact this is the only photo we have of it - taken after a pretty severe hailstorm.

The first task was to remove the old deck ( at the same time I removed the stand-alone deck that covered the septic tank cover - we are turning that into a small garden).

Here are a couple of photos of the framework. For the English carpenters amongst the audience, the basic framework is for a double beam of 12 x 2 inch beams to support the top frame - itself made from 2 x 10 pressure treated pine!

Putting the decking in place, and building the handrails was a work of art - probably taking the two contractors about 3 weeks of solid work treating the wood, cutting to size and fastening with screws from below. However, as you see below - it was worth it!  All we need now is some matching furniture!