Contractor Screwed Up. How I Fixed This Deck

what the hell why is it on the ground I wish I was better why what happened what happened here I am currently standing in our dining room and this is nice and spacious and to the right of me are these ginormous sliding doors and the best thing that we could possibly come up with for the outside of those doors is a nice beautiful deck that extends the dining room all the way out and today folks we're going to accomplish just that our materials are already here they got them sourced from the same place we got the rest of our lumber the concrete footings have been poured when we laid the foundation of this house thinking ahead and since we got the materials it's time to set our anchor poost into the ground to see the area that we're working with to start building's deck ground up so I don't know what my concrete guy was thinking but this one on Center this one's on Center that's not on Center so I have to find like a good middle ground compromise cuz I don't like how offset this is so yeah concrete guy was drunk Hammer Time Well SDS hammer drill time [Music] so I got a call yesterday saying that they're bringing the lumber for the deck um this is the TR deck that already showed up but we're waiting on the 4x6 beam that come comes across uh he said he delivered it he said um where do you want to put it just in this little wood section I was like yeah do that put that in that area I'll be there tomorrow um I'm not seeing it here which makes me think that he took it to the wrong freaking place I bet you I bet you it's going to be up there down that road somewhere well let's go find out I really hope I really hope it's not there be that's my 4x6 Beam for the deck I freaking took it to the wrong house freaking hell man all right just got done carrying this monstrosity down the hill to buy me some time building this deck the framers actually included the bid to include building of the deck now it doesn't mean finishing it it just means framing it all up I just got here and it seems like they're already done with this deck so let me go check it out to see if we're ready to start laying our tracks what the hell why is it on the ground I wish I was better why what happened what happened here why is that deck on the ground we were supposed to lift her or something I appreciate the help with it but the thing is is the plans show that there's hangers on both sides and the way it's getting secured is it goes off here comes out and attaches with hangers on the bottom of this and then we got to put a post underneath it so we still got to put a post a post in there okay so that's not a kind of a problem we can just lift it it's really heavy we can just like redo the the the the freaking the deck bro that's are you sure I got so excited I got it all ready for you and I came here and I was like what in the hell the thing is we didn't have the post for it yeah so the post the way I kind of Imagine is we'd use that uh the beam and we set the beam and then set this Beam on top of that one and then ID have to get the brackets that connect them together keep them from moving my truck yeah come on maybe after this after this is done and this beam shows to be like right on there concrete footing concrete footing you see but look but but on this side it's flat that's my biggest problem is big step yeah I I also saw that the the P because the picture here shows that there's it's a smooth transition let's lift it m keep it close to the edge on the on top because the we got to the the board that that I'm putting on top the TR deck is like 3/4 in I think yeah so just bring it up to 3/4 in right here let the deck run off and then let's I want it to be like flat cuz the idea is the door opens up and you have extra space on the deck so yeah let's bring it up uh to to the top and then just cut off that thing and put a a post at the bottom [Applause] you know when it rains it pours not only is there problems with the cabin build especially this deck thing uh but now my truck uh had to go into the shop and get uh not only new tires and uh also the diesel uh filters needed to be changed and uh of course I was without a truck for a while but that reminds me the importance of taking care of your truck especially for things that I do I rely on this thing to get the job done whatever it is and that's why I'm excited to talk about the sponsors of today's video real truck I love working with real truck for quite some time they create some of the coolest accessories to bring my truck to live one of the most recent things that I just got is this real truck elevation wrap the t-slotted system is absolutely incredible most trucks when you put a tonu cover like I did this retracts from real truck last time uh you can't put a rack system on because it covers all these little holes to be able to put that rack but with with this elevation rack it fits slick right into this track and it's fully adjustable to go up and down this rail system to get this rack system looking exactly positioned the way you want and the t- slot system doesn't just end there there's a t- slot system on top here so you could put sidebars or any other kind of accessories on there whether you're hauling canoes or putting sheets of plywood you're able to throw it on there put the side bars on it as well and ratch it or tie it into place and that sucker secured real truck has millions of parts and accessories to fit exactly perfect ly free truck including this last thing that I put on these power steps that don't come on this 2013 F350 but now I got them so bring your truck to life give it the love it deserves make it a badass truck click the link description below or head to realtruck.com to check out so many cool parts and accessories thank you real truck for partnering us on this and helping me get the job done with the right parts and accessories now let's get back to this deck [Music] all right we got the problem fixed got it lifted up and I got it lifted up exactly perfect to be 3/4 in from the bottom of the sill just because the TRU deck will slide neatly underneath it that's the part I was super excited about so there's like a flawless transition got the last of the boards on we ended up picking up and putting the post down so I brought some Hardware to secure it all in all it's turning up really well this is I tell me if I'm wrong in the comments but this 6x10 beam might be a little overkill for you know a 12T deck but whatever I love to hear your Insight going to throw the remainder of the hangers on and then we'll start securing the brackets for the Post down below so this thing doesn't start shifting on us when the weather changes [Music] last of the floor joist are in what we're going to do to not make any mistakes like we have in the past is uh when the TRX comes in it's great but we're going to put a frame around it so we're going to need to put some blocking right here so that it can actually grab onto something and not just go flip over [Music] all right it's decking time so this is a TX deck this stuff lasts forever one disappointing part is when I ordered this TX deck they're like look online check the color you like let us know I did picked the color that's the right name that's not the color that it looks like online which sucks I was going for like a lighter color but Brown is still fine I guess I don't know nothing goes right here this looks like a transition piece which I've never actually seen them before like when you go to Like Home Depot or something but it's cool that we got it here's what we got going on here the nice thing is we have a backing piece here to secure the apron which is going to be mitered down the middle here the problem is is if the boards are running this way which they have to there's not enough meat for it to grab onto here so I mean if I give it some a little bit of an overhang we can grab onto it but I feel like I need to just add another just a backing piece right there just to give it just that little added support and not worry about it in the future [Music] bring out the miter saw an idiot I'm like man I don't like this color and then I flip it over and I go oh that's the color that I went with that's so dumb of me that looks so much better than this stupid H I'm exhausted folks [Music] look how tight this miter is kid that's a good looking miter it's a little celebrations at this point [Music] okay the hardest part is done that's starting your line we got our Corners nice tight mitered got our first row going and then we're going to use these Universal Clips to slide that in place here secure it with the screw this probably a better example that way it presses it all down together it conceals the screws and uh it's going to be a nice pretty looking deck [Music] [Applause] [Music] here's the thing that I didn't anticipate when getting a premium product like TX de as opposed to you know Douglas forur natural wood you would think that the selling point is that it's longevity right you don't have to sand it and restain it every couple of years but you'd imagine being like a composite PVC product that it would be dead straight but they still bow out together and then we have like a qu inch Gap here so you're still having to manhandle it I don't know how it's shifting it shouldn't but you're still manhandling I did find a little trick that has been working so far for me is if you start on one side and you get it into place and we know it's going to bow out a little bit on the other side set one of your screws on the opposite side all the way in and then do it every couple of boards that way it all kind of keeps pressed together as you're going along but for some reason this one's not dead Plum or flat as it should be but you know we're figuring it out one step at a time this is the part that I was getting real nervous about we're going to see if we can get a full piece in here so we're looking at 5 and a half well let's see here 5 and 3/4 by time you get a gap so five and 3/4 H just a little sliver there damn that's going to be annoying to put in man that sucks how do you guys build decks when it comes to like decking the top of it do you guys build from the wall out or do you build from out to in uh I'd be curious to know maybe maybe there's a better way my fear was going to be if I build from here out then I'm going to have to cut the sliver out there and that's going to look kind of wanky versus out here also did I say wanky I meant wonky about 3/4 of inches uh reveal here typically it's not too bad maybe ideally we should have started from here and gone out but then again we wouldn't have any reveal there so I got two options because it's a subtle uh reveal it's not too bad I just don't like that you could see the wood that that's really what's catching your eye I got two options I get either a use deck paint and paint the part that's revealing which would be perfect it wouldn't catch your eye it would blend in with this just painted black or I could try to rip a 3/4 in piece put it in there but the only problem is I don't have any backing I mean some backing I do but it's I mean it's going to be a a 3/4 inch piece by the time you put a screw in there it could crack on you so um I'm going to explore the piece that would fit in there first and if it cracks it cracks and then I'll just paint it but at least I I I gave it the good old College try but in the meantime I think what I'm going to go from here is cut the next board out here trimmed it out and then we can continue a Flawless transition all the way across without too many scenes building a deck is always an adventure you never know what you're going to [Music] get oh great I cut the transition piece that's great this was the goal with the sliding door just perfectly under a perfect transition but we'll have to come up with something special over there in the meantime I'm going to start trimming this back so I can get the other miter apron wrapped around [Music] it this deck came out so nice I was actually little as hesitant think it's going to be too small of a deck but 200 ft works really nice I mean in the ideal World it' be cool to get it spread out here but if you think about it whether you're coming from that side or this side you can at least walk around it if you need to now we're not done yet we still got to paint the bottom part we got to put the hardware on but before we do that let's talk about the hardware the railing that we're going to deal with cuz that is a well that is a that's a 2 and a2t drop we need railing so the whole kit was uh supplied to me well I paid for it uh through the lumber Ard they quoted everything which is kind of convenient but when you ever get stuff like that it's not like this instruction so it looks pretty straightforward um we are going to have seven posts all around I got six-footers and 8 Footers for the railing uh they look like they just sit right inside there and uh you put these caps over it and then secure the screws from the side that looks pretty simple but and then these cover the post bases but what I don't know is what in the heck this little u channel thing is again no instructions that comes with this cuz this is not for like you know an Amazon sell or anything but we're going to see what the orientation looks like and if we need to cut anything that's going to be the most interesting part is you need to manipulate anything all right for the rails we have six Footers and we have 8f Footers they're 34 in tall and the spread here on the shallow side uh we're almost 9 ft long so we can't use the eight and we can't use the six so it seems like we're going to have to break them down into even sections I guess probably use whatever we got here I'm going to get my angle grinder set the first post and then just kind of go from there should be interesting [Music] good news is I figured out what these things were and it didn't take long I just take them out uh they're wedges so in case your deck is going one way or another you just put them underneath and then cut the rest off so we got to the bottom of that mystery but the packaging did not include the lags that go into the deck and we are an hour and a half outside of town so I'm GNA bring that up tomorrow so right now my goal is just cut and set them together so that tomorrow I could secure them and balance them this is one solid railing I've never installed railings before in my life and this came out actually way better than I thought really easy to do as long as you keep it leveled left to right you should be good um it's kind of fun to watch it from the side and just see it perfectly straight next up on the list we got these lower brackets that essentially is a little apron skirt that goes around around it covers all the screw holes oh and by the way the kit is called cinch I got it from the lumber yard where I got all my supplies and you know it's been chaotic trying to get all the supplies this kit surprisingly everything came to place everything was in order nothing went wrong and we had enough [Music] supplies okay so we addressed it they fixed the deck in terms of elevation and all that stuff but here's what they didn't fix I have a post that's sticking out 2 and 1 12 in now I don't know why I just extended an extra 2 and 1/2 3 in on that side it won't make a big difference it's going to be fine but no they're just like no this is what it is so now what I have to do is take a bottle Jack Jack this thing up remove this post realign everything and then twist this post over to the side so it'll run this way and not that way do you remember at the abandoned house where I had to lift entire roof while now I'm lifting an entire deck so in case you guys are like wait that's why did your deck just freely come off that post well I specifically asked my framers not to secure them because I wanted to get a proper better looking aesthetically Hardware so I got the Simpson uh strong tie really cool brackets heavy duty but before I can put them on I need to stain this and weather protected as well so I've been going back and forth about what color do I paint stain uh this deck bottom part cuz keep in mind everything's going to be Cedar line there black metal roof we have already accent black here Brown top decking and then I thought it'd be a little weird to have more black um stain on the bottom plus when snow drips down the black colors just starts looking I don't know like kind of like a card that's dirty so I'm going to give it more of a camouflage and the solution that I came up with is at Home Depot I picked up this bare premium waterproof stain uh sealer and the color is Cedar nature Cedar nature Stone so hope ful it got it creates this more of like a calal kind of tone so it Blends in really well I'm going to give it a nice quick stir and start applying it with a brush all right change of plans did a test sample the color is absolutely terrible that looks orange to me let me get you guys in better light here what in the actual heck look at this that's just orange that's such an ugly color what do we doing folks as soon as I opened this can and I was like no way that does not look like that all right I got to go back in town go get something maybe a darker color maybe something will match the top of the deck better I'm glad I didn't even do a test run on on the deck itself cuz I would have had to sand it right off take to uh about kabat kabat kabat uh honey teak I they didn't have any samples in the store to see what it looks like I went to this little Mom and Pop's place down here uh so I had to Google it it looks like it's close to Natural with a hint of honey I'm guessing so far this looks promising already let's mix it up oh yeah this looks much more closer to Cedar and actually the look that we might be wanting to go with all right let's throw it on I might regret this at the end of the day all right I'll be honest I am not terribly excited about how it turned out I'm not super disappointed I'm I'm optimistic here's what I'm looking like so it's more orangish red why is is it so hard to find more of just like an actual tan color um the color combination between the brown the we'll call it Cedar color and the black really makes it look like it's a fall color from a distance it's it's a cool accent I I dig that I'm going to wait till it fades off overnight dries off see what it looks like before I really make up my mind but I'm also by the time we get to putting uh cedar boards across the you know the bump outs and The Gables and stuff like that it might complement it and if it does great if it doesn't I will figure something else out um let me know what you guys think in the in the comment section do you guys like it I think it's all right like for like a cabin anything but um let me know and be nice well I got good news and bad news bad news is it rained the good news is the stain got time to cure and I love the way it turned out it's not too orange like I was afraid of and I'm really hoping that that it's going to complement the cedar sighting so much better now I guess sometimes you got to let these things cure overnight before you make your final decision and my other concern was always the footings and as you can see we actually did a pretty good job that it slopes away it's not building up any puddles on top except for one little troublemaker right here which again it's good thing not going on top of the post so we're going to have to dig more of this out to create a better slope so we avoid this puddle from creating us any kind of damage in the future guys thanks so much for watching this video it means the world to me make sure you tune in for next week's video where we're finally going to get a roof on this thing black metal roof after three torrential rains it's much needed and in the meantime here's a video I think you might enjoy bye