so ive been living in my house for around 2 years. i have an inground pool (we bought the house, and the pool came with it) and as it looks right now, i have the ground slopes away from the pool down into my yard. so imagine if you will, about 10 ft. from the edge of the pool to the fence, on the left side of the pool and top side of the pool. so make an L shape around the left side and wrap around the top and you get the picture.

anyway, that L section is wasted space. i cant do anything with it, and the grass around it grows up real fast. but of course since it slopes, its almost impossible to mow, so i have to weed eat the freakin thing. so after talking it over with my wife, we decided that we need a deck around it to truly make good use of the space and to up the value of our house. this will include a wooden fence up around the pool as well.

so...long story short....i had a guy come out and give me an estimate....

wait for it.....

$15,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

holy crap. i was thinking, the max i want to pay is around $6000. but no, more than double of what i thought. now granted, the contractor i had to come out and look at my house to build the deck is the very first one, and he is supposedly one of the high end of contractors. he builds for several of the bigger houses around the city so i expected it to be high, but not THAT HIGH!!! geez. im going to get some more estimates, but im starting to think that regardless of how ignorant and afraid i am of building the deck myself, im starting to consider it after hearing the first estimate.

Remodels, whether it be a house, pool, deck or whatever are *never* inexpensive.

There are a whole bucket of issues to overcome when you remodel vs. build new. That, and its relatively easy to get something done when you already have that trade on site doing something else (new construction)

You can always call it a summer project and do it yourself. I've built quite a few decks myself, its a pita but afterwards very rewarding.

yeah well unfortunately i have no experience in such things. ive built myself an arcade cabinet before, but thats about it. ive never done any large scale construction work/remodeling of any kind. and being newly married (3 years) i havent had time to acquire lots of power tools. so my older brother or father in law would have to help me build it. i just know so little about all this and i dont feel good about it...maybe im just being a wuss.

I have just completed a pretty big deck, and a 320' wooden fence (THAT was a spanker!! they want "Amigo" money for wood nowadays). Luckily, the three Hurricanes that hit my old house gave me a lot of experience in fence/deck building/rebuilding. If you want some fun irony, work on some card buildings while the workers are doing your real stuff outside. You will NEVER complain about WWG's prices after THAT! (not that anyone does complain), but you can build an entire 5x10' Urban Mayhem City cheaper than one pallet of stain for your fence.

I'm in a similar boat in terms of lack of power tools or experience. I will be getting a fencing quote soon and I'm not looking forward to the cost. The labor is quite expensive but it's the cost of materials these days that really jacks up the price.

I do want to build a deck, probably next year, and I have offered to help my neighbour build his so I can get some experience.

Arabin

well my deck isnt an enormous deck, but it isnt a tiny one. if you think of the L shape i talked about....

the long part of the L will be about 42' x 10' and the short part of the L will be 25' x 10', and then couple that with a wooden fence going around it and i guess thats worth 15k, but i sure hope not. i was thinking of more like 6k

Filling with soil and adding a retaining wall sounds like a good idea to me. In fact, that is where I thought the initial post was going to go. Was a bit surprised you wanted to build it up with a deck. It's not just the normal square footage you are looking at, but you have to have support pillars, with solid foundations... so some of those beams are going to be big bits of wood... which adds to the cost.

I want to get my fences done first, to stop the entire neighbourhood walking past my back patio doors. After that, I need to decide how to use the space.

Arabin

That sounds great Delta Ice. What part of Mississippi? I love that new highway strecth, drive through it when I go to Arkansas via car sometimes.

You know, I love being outside. If I could I'd drag all my stuff out there to work on. As it is, I spend time outside writing on the laptop ... having long distance morning coffee get togethers on the porch with my brother who lives in Virginia and also writes, feeding the birds and squirrels, fooling around with a garden, bugging my baby sister (she's 50 and lives a quarter mile away), and I raised an orphaned opossum last summer ... named him Zip. Lots of courage in that little guy. The corgis seemed to know on their own to leave Zip alone. When he was ready I let him go.

Yep, life is good ... its the muddy Mississippi water, LOL. I've got to tell you all this, I saw a baby cardinal ... its parents had made their nest in a bush by the porch. That baby looked like a punk rocker ... it was so cute!

Sounds nice, Delta. I go to my place on the Illinois River ('tween Tahlequah and Chewbacca, OK, right near the Arkansas border all the time!). We have Elk, Deer (well, were "helping" keep their population "manageable" ), Beavers (don't screw around with them! They have zero sense of humor!!), Minks, and all the smallmouth bass, giant catfish and white bass you could want. One thing up their is the bugs!! I'm from Florida, and when I complain about "Big Bugs", it means y'all have "Big Bugs!"!!! Foot long Centipedes, Lunar Moths with wing spans last seen in a Toho movie, and the wasps! Don't get me started! First time I saw one, I thought it was some sort of test drone from the Air Force base!!!

I'll drop you an email. Not sure how doable it'll be as the coordination with neighbours is the biggest hassle right now.

Arabin

[quote="smokeyrone"]GIANT iguanas down here now .... I'll get a pic posted of my daughter and I "petting" a five foot one.[/quote]

I read a news article about that not long ago. I was in Florida for a couple years back in 1964-66 but they never had stuff like that then, thank goodness! I remember most how beautiful the beaches were ... with the sun shining, the water rippled with strands of gold it seemed.

My husband talked me into fishing off a pier at night ... caught nothing but catfish. Nasty looking fish! He was in the Air Force at the time.

Yep, I'd like to see the picture, Smokey.

[quote="Shinobi"]LOL

Crickets, lizards........... oi vey!!!

Just be thankful you ain't got Cobras, Tigers, Crocs and Monkeys running... errrr or slithering..... around
quote]

Thanks to gobal trade and the exotic pet industry I imagine we'll end up with those species eventually. I don't think I could ever adjust to those species being around here. It'd be a good time for me to visit Alaska.

Besides six foot feral Iguanas, we have 20+ Pythons that are popping up everywhere near the glades. Their eating alligators (or trying to )


I really want spitting cobras here (ever since I saw Marlin Perkins screwing around with one, and it was spitting on his diving mask.) Let the darn tourists take some chances when they go outside!

We are still the shark attack capital of the world here (my daughter and I caught 12 hammerheads right from the beach in about an hour recently) but their mostly just spinner and black tips (they don't rip off chunks of flesh, just bite and let go ) Its the surfer dudes that get bit. Go to a Ft. pierce surfing tournament and your bound to see an attack. But it ain't like Jaws, no "Alex kitner" drama, usually just stiches. I want to see half a surfbord wash up like in Australia or California. ( I admit, don't like surfers, they were always mean to me when I fished the beach as a kid, called "Lame" and "not cool"!)

Well, safe to go back outside after the accidental bottle rocketing of the neighbor ("It just went off? Damn Chinese and their cheap fireworks!")



Shinobi, y'all have some exciting snakes in Maylasia, don't you?