Toasting the deck!

The deck boards are down! Whitney came to help me with the last ones tonight and afterward we sat on the deck and had dinner and beer to toast it (reminiscent of toasting my kitchen completion) .

We were determined to finish placing those boards tonight. The thunder didn't stop us. The short-lived drizzle didn't stop us. We did it!

The last board needed some sawzalling (yes, I made that a verb) but we didn't encounter any impossibly warped boards. We made it all work and now it feels like a real deck!!! I could have table, chairs, a hammock, a grill and still have space for a dance party. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but it does look really large now that all of the boards are down. I still need to add some more screws (planned for tomorrow evening) and need to put on the railings (anyone want to help on Sunday?), but this milestone  is HUGE!