Workflow

Whenever we start a new piece of this house-building project, there’s a learning curve as we figure out the most efficient way to proceed. For example, our first beam took maybe an hour to construct, as we went very slowly and consulted the instruction book constantly. After that, we knew what to expect for the next 21 beams and were able to divide up the work between the two of us in a time-efficient manner. For example, one of us would finish nailing up a beam while the other fetched the lumber for the next beam.

The same process happened with the decking. At first we were both up on ladders nailing the decking down to the beams. But after a while we found that it was more efficient for one of us to stay down on the ground doing all the cutting, while the other stayed up top and nailed down the boards. Because each piece of decking had to be custom cut due to slight differences in the distances between the beams, we’d take measurements for two or more boards at once so that the person using the saw could cut those boards while the person up top was nailing down the previous two.

We cut the decking with a 10 inch miter saw on a stand, with the boards supported on both ends. This might be unusual, since most people probably use a circular saw, and it did require more fiddling with getting the boards positioned under the blade. Also, the blade isn’t quite big enough to cut entirely through the 5.5 inch wide board (the last tiny bit has to be cut with a hacksaw). But the miter saw allowed for very straight, clean cuts that will look and feel better at the joints between the boards.

These are the kinds of things that you learn on your own through mistakes and experience, not from reading the instruction book.