Last week the driveway concrete was poured. We chose to increase the depth from four to five inches and reinforce with rebar to avoid cracking (good luck there) and support heavier vehicle traffic. Here's a pic of the guys just before the last load was poured. The driveway used up 35 yards of concrete poured on two successive days.

This is a beautiful site - for our neighbors who've been seeing our cars parked on the street for a long time.

In the meantime, I finished framing the walls. The next thing on the hit list was to tackle this pile of TJI joists.

I had to cut each end square and to the correct length. I made SURE I measured twice and cut once. Otherwise, I'd be saying, "I've cut it twice, and it's still too short!"
It was a beautiful day as you can see.I may have forgotten to mention that I put up a couple of rows of OSB on the walls to stiffen them up. Otherwise the whole structure would be rather flexible.
I installed these by myself. Here, the first three are up. But, of 24 total, each one felt like it weighed more than the one before. Did I mention I've lost 10 pounds at the "Birkeness Backyard CrossFit Center?"

The next day I put the sheathing on the roof. Nailing was relatively easy. The hard part was tossing the sheets of 1/2" OSB up on the roof, all 26 of them.
Even though it looks really good, we still have a long way to go.
Next up is base plumbing, rough electrical, rough mechanical, and framing inspections. Of course I have to do the work before the inspections happen. Then insulation, roofing, and doors. All this in no particular order, just get it done as soon as I can.

This project has three parts; the replacement deck attached to the back of the house (1), the garage (2), and the deck on the roof of the garage (3).
Part one is complete! The addition of the stainless steel wire balusters and the hand rail finishes off the details. The wire looks really great, in the shade or the sun, and you can see through it as if it were glass - without having to clean it.

The railing curves, of course, to match the profile of the deck's shape.

Without any delay, the lumber was delivered. I had it dropped in the dirt because I did not want to harm the fresh garage floor concrete. I did put down some plywood to keep mud off everything.

One half day later, all was moved to a workable location.

Working around the stacks, 3 out of 4 sides have been framed. Nice.

Well before I get into the rental story, I'd like to show you how nicely the boat fits in the back yard. As planned, I'll not have to back the trailer in, but can just drive through both (future) garage doors and do all the turning around behind the garage.
I waited until this week for the concrete floor to cure hard enough to get a Bobcat across in order to grade the back yard flat and clean it up a bit. Then, 15 minutes after that was done, I pulled the boat out of our neighbor's driveway and put it away for the winter. 
Terry liked having the boat in her driveway as her friends would ask when she got the new boat, and when they would be going out to the reservoir. She totally played along. When she asked what she should tell her friends now, with the boat being gone, I suggested she make up a story that goes like this; "Just when we stopped, put out the anchor, opened a bottle of champagne, and set out hors d'oeuvre, the boat sank!" We're working on details to make it believable. Only you know the truth!

The steel arrived the same day. This will be the retaining wall for each side of the driveway. Six sheets 4ft X 12ft and seven 3" X 3" angle, all 3/16" thick, aka HEAVY!
This is actually CorTen steel, a particular steel used for architectural applications. CorTen stands for CORrosion resistant TENsile steel. We chose this because of it's look and because it uses less space compared to the retaining wall building blocks sold at home improvement stores.

I knew they made a pneumatic tool to drive the posts into the ground and I wanted to rent one. So I called the rental place to verify that my shop compressor had enough power to run the tool. The answer was "No." But they would gladly rent the compressor, of course. I told the rental guy I wasn't sure if I had enough room in the Expedition to carry the compressor. He said don't worry it comes on it's own trailer!?! Seriously. It's 180 CFM (cubic feet per minute) my compressor is only 9 CFM.

So, properly equipped, I prepped each post cutting as necessary with a SawsAll, and began putting all 25 posts in the ground. Each post is on 49" centers to accommodate the 48 1/2" sheet width.

That little yellow post hammer weighs about 80 pounds. It kicked my butt - that's why I'm blogging today. I had to use a ladder to carry it up high enough for the 6ft tall posts. Today, about the only thing I can lift is the mouse for my computer. It was very efficient, however. Returned everything the next day for only a one day rental.
The posts will define the boundary for the concrete driveway. Then the concrete will define how low the sheet metal should be to the ground. Then I'll cut the sheet metal and fasten to the posts with self tapping stainless steel screws - with matching brown heads to go with the rusty look of the steel.
Cheers!