2015-03-27 Underpinning the Deck with Lattice Panels

Last July I promised I'd share photos as we completed work on the deck and stained it.  The staining
hasn't gone as planned.  You can't apply paint or stain when it's raining or cold and it's been pretty
much that type weather since last fall.  But I do have some photos to share.

Before planting flowers around the deck, Linda asked me to underpin it.  "Underpinning" is a term we
use for putting a skirt under a mobile home.  I'm not sure if it's the right term for a deck but that's
what we call it.  We used treated lattice panels.

Last December the deck looked like this.



Here's what it looked like as we began underpinning.



It was cool, in the 60s, and quite windy.  The pups couldn't hang so Linda let 'em take refuge in the car.



The deck is level but the ground is not.  I was gonna cut the lattice to fit.  Linda had a better idea.
She said, "Why not dig down."  The ground is quite soft this time of year because of all the rain.
It didn't take much to dig out and cut the lattice square.  It looks very nice with the soil back in place.


Just one problem.  There was a stump in the way.  Here's a photo of the tree taken in 2013.



In 2014, before we had the pool installed, we realized the tree was in the way.  It was rotten
at the base anyway and we knew it would have to come down.  Our son-in-law brought his
chain saw over and cut it down for us.  He and our grandson disposed of the pieces.

That left a stump that was right in line with the underpinning we planned to do.


But it had been there a year now and was partially rotted when we cut the tree down.  An hour
with an axe and other tools cut it down to size.  It didn't completely get rid of it but we were able
to "plow" a path through the middle of it.  By trimming the bottom of the lattace a bit
it fit over the remains of the stump very well.



After pushing the dirt back it was time to clean up.



Now Linda can plant around the border.  Scroll down to see what she has in mind.



As they were about to install the pool last year, Linda's day lillies were on this side of the steps.



She had to move them to this side, away from where we would build the deck.



During the winter, Linda's day lillies were completely covered with pine straw mulch.  After the
weather warmed up, they began to poke through.  She put down newspaper with plastic ground
cloth over it.  She put the pine straw mulch on top of that.

The scrap lumber is only temporary.  It's there to kill the grass and protect
the monkey grass border so it doesn't accidently get mowed.  She will remove the scrap lumber
once the monkey grass matures.



Here's the last photo.  On this side of the deck Linda will plant azaleas.  On the
other side (see photos at the top of this page) she will plant azaleas and marigolds.



I've never been good at flower gardening but Linda has real talent.
I enjoy seeing the results.

If you want to go back and review all the pool installation and deck building pages
I sent out last year, CLICK HERE.

 
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