Hot Tub Removal

I know... that phrase is blasphemous. Why would we remove a built-in hot tub from our deck? WHYY?! Well, if you recall, our hot tub looked like this:

This sucker gots to go! Back in October we finally made it happen!

First we had to dig out all the weeds, er, plants and re-locate all the dirt to the woods behind our house. When we got 2/3 of the way down we hit rock bottom. Literally. The previous owners filled the bottom of the hot tub with red lava rock for drainage. Getting through all of the rock wasn't quite as easy as shoveling out the dirt but we got the job done.

After digging came the fun part! Sawing the hot tub into pieces.

My dad cut the hot tub into 3 or 4 pieces and we lifted it out.

Afterwards we were left with a gaping hole in the deck and a pile of crap on the deck.

We then built in some supports and laid down some new decking.

Later we made our neighbors proud with a classy dumpster in our driveway. Finnigan enjoyed gazing out at it.

All Hands on Deck

When we moved in our upper deck was not very well supported. The whole weight of our deck rested on two 4x4 posts, one of which was bowing and twisting, so we haven't gotten any use of the deck off the kitchen since we've moved in. 

Our ultimate goal is to add stairs from the top deck, so reinforcement was a necessary first step. This weekend my dad and brother were kind enough to come over and help us do some work! Saturday we bought all the lumber we would need and figured out our plan of action. We had to tear up some of the deck in order to gain access to the existing concrete pads for the posts to rest on.

I didn't take any pictures during the process, but Sunday we got the new 4x6 posts up along with a massive beam that will now bear the weight of the deck.

We were able to use the existing concrete pads, which saved us some time and money, but left us with a not very symmetrical support system...oh well! 

The next step is to rip out the hot tub full of weeds! Hooray!