How I Built a Trex Deck

Inspiring you to try to build a deck yourself. Sharing the good, the bad and the ugly and all of the tips I learned along the way to help you do your next deck project. This is how I built a Trex deck.  A DIYer sharing her best tips!

What brought me to this? To showing you how I built a deck with my own two hands?

If you missed my post about my parent’s deck, set in the woods, off of Puget Sound in Seattle, then you probably have no idea why. However, if you have been here a while you do probably know that I don’t have a deck or any need for one.

But, my parent’s do!  And my heart just wanted them to have a nice place to spend their evenings by the fire.

Have I ever built a deck before? Nope.

So here I am.  And I am going to tell you up front that YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS, friend.

Wait until you read what happened that made me ugly cry! Sometimes DIY can be really, really hard.

I began this journey by having my parents take measurements and send me photos. The deck is 12′ x 14′.  I ordered the Trex decking, railings and all the necessary hardware and fasteners from Lowe’s (cost breakdown will be in my final reveal post next week.) 5 weeks before my arrival in Seattle.  We scheduled my arrival around the delivery date that Lowe’s gave me and I would be there for 10 days.

If they lived close by then I would have been able to just use all of my tools, but they don’t so they had to invest in a few items they didn’t have. They had to purchase a miter saw (that they will probably never use again, but we really needed it!), a drill and a multi-tool costing them an extra $378 for this project. I did have to improvise a little with the available tools they had, but it all worked out.

I needed a new one so bought a new jig saw to use while I was there as well and then I brought it home. Side note: I found out the hard way that “no power tools are allowed in your carry on, M’am”.  Not even a plug-in jig saw with no blade, LOL!! Not sure what they think I will do with it, but I checked my bag anyway.

I didn’t want to have spend my limited time there tearing the old deck apart so they hired a handy man to disassemble the old deck and haul it all away.  I spent the first couple of days bracing the deck for the railing posts that I would be installing.  It turned out that the framing structure of the deck was in great shape so all that needed to be done was to build the deck on top of that.

“All that needed to be done”. Famous last words.

Day one and two:

While I was busy doing prep work, my daughter (with her broken toe) and mom sanded the stringers that had been painted green.  We planned to paint or stain them so we needed to get rid of the old paint.

The order was delivered and I got to work.

First, I made a temporary frame around the deck structure to act as a frame for my planks so that I could keep the same 1/4″ gap around the whole thing to allow for expansion and contraction. Once that was built,  I cut a scrap piece of I wood to 1/4″ and used it as a guide for my planks to butt in to.

I would lay a plank down, place my 1/4″ guide against the temporary board and then push the plank against it. That way there would be the same spacing on each end.

It worked like a charm!  The hardest part of this section of the deck was carrying the very long and very heavy planks from the front of the house to the back. Let me tell you that a 16′ piece of TREX composite decking is VERY heavy and if you are 5’2″ it is really awkward to move around. But, ambition won and I did just fine.

Every plank of decking is not square on the ends so I had to square off one end of each plank with the miter saw. Then I measured the correct length I needed and cut that, hoisted each plank onto my shoulder and carried it to the backyard.

Yes, Tylenol would soon be my best friend!

I bought the TREX hidden fasteners for this project.  They were a breeze to install and look amazing! The hidden fasteners make it so that you don’t have to screw directly into the planks and gives it a nice, professional look. You don’t have any screws showing at all! The fasteners hook into the built-in grooves on the planks to pull two planks tightly together as you secure it down to the deck frame.

The result is a beautiful finish and I highly recommend using them. If you don’t use the hidden fasteners, you have to pre-drill into each plank for each screw you want to add. You need to use a special composite screw with this type of decking and they don’t go in without pre-drilling. That is waaaaay more work. And why would you want to do that?

The planks took me a day and a half to install.

The weather rotted a small area of the siding on the house that would touch the new decking so to match the beauty of the deck, I cut out the rotted area of the siding, went under the deck (gross) and cut out a siding piece that the weather really hadn’t touched the same size as the rotted piece and just swapped them.  It looks so much better!

I also wanted the new deck planks against the house to fit under the siding.  The Trex decking was a little thicker than the previous boards that had been on the deck by 1/2″. So I had to cut any siding on the house that the new deck would go under to allow for the new planks to fit.  I measured the thickness of the plank, marked the existing siding where I need to cut, then used a multi-tool to cut the extra 1/2″ off.

The new planks would slide right under the old siding.  Perfect!

Days three and four:

Time to install the railing system on the deck.  My parents chose a prefabricated, matte black simple square baluster railing.  It is actually really pretty.  It is really easy to install (like really easy) and saved the cost of having it custom-built by a railing company. It is a great option to keep you within budget.

I got busy installing the posts and, if you follow the instructions, they are really simple to install.  Something to note: you cannot just screw your posts into your decking. You have to add bracing underneath the deck with 2x4s so that the long 4″ lag screws will have something to drive into.

It is also important to have the correct bit for your drill so you can drive the lag screws (not included) into the decking and the bracing.  You don’t want to do it entirely by hand with a socket wrench. Luckily my parents had a bit that I could attach to my drill.

I did have to do the last part of the driving by hand with a socket wrench. It was pretty hard and took a little time.  Using my level as I used the socket wrench to secure the posts, I had to shim the posts as needed until the lag screws were tight and the posts were straight. Not hard, but time-consuming to get it perfect.

The posts went in and then it was time to install the railings. They needed to be cut a specific length, minus a 3/4″ on each end, etc. to fit into the brackets.  It was all in the instructions and there was no room for error. We only had exactly what we needed in the order and these things are not usually readily available in-store.

Having never done this before, I read and re-read the instructions very carefully and was SO excited when I did it just right.  I felt so rejuvenated and had a new pep-in-my-step because I DID IT!  I needed the help of my daughter to hand me my drill once I got a railing set and it did take the whole day.

I used the miter saw to cut the aluminum railings. Be sure to use ear plugs. It is loud and I am pretty sure that I scared off some of the wildlife in the woods. But they cut nicely and accurately.

It was easy but time consuming with most of that time reading, re-reading, measuring and checking the measurements again and again before cutting.

Something to Note: there is a video on YouTube on how to install this exact system and it was made by Lowe’s which is where I bought the railing. BUT, the instructions on measuring and cutting on the video are actually incorrect so please follow the written instructions that come with the railings! The comments have been turned off on the video so I just happened to watch it so many times that I figured it out on my own.   Luckily I caught that incorrect detail before I cut the rails.

I felt like I was 100 years old by the end of day four, but OH it looks amazing!

Day five and six:

Now was time for the stairs.

OMG the stairs.

I ended up having to take the stairs apart and reinstall them. I had to remove the stringers (the wood part that looks like alligator teeth that support the stairs), cut a section off for the new railing system to be able to work and to eliminate a step that sat on the ground, and then reattach them.

Hindsight I should have just bought new stringers. They aren’t that expensive and would have saved me some extra work.

I wanted to cry. I was so tired and that was so unexpected. Despite showering at the end of each day I felt so dirty and so, so sore. But I had to keep moving forward.

Once the stringers were installed I began to install the planks on the stairs. I ran out of the TREX screws halfway through so I sent my parents out to find me more composite decking screws.  They found some and brought them home for me.

You would think that one composite decking screw is just like another, but that is not true.  We thought that we could use a different brand of deck screws but they ended up being a NIGHTMARE to work with. They were unforgiving and REALLY difficult to use.

Something to note: The lesson in this is to be sure to use the screw made by the brand of decking you are installing. 

I had to install bracing for the bottom posts to screw into, just like I did on the deck. Once I got the stairs installed it was time to install the railing. This was REALLY hard for me. Probably because I had already been working a solid 10 hours on the stairs that day. I should have called it quits and NOT started the stair railing that afternoon, but the deck railing went in so well that I thought it would be just as easy.

IT WAS NOT!

It was way more difficult, or maybe I was so tired that it seemed more difficult and should have come back the next day to work on it.

Do you want to know what happened?

Remember when I said these things are not readily available at the store and we had to order these items 5 weeks in advance?  Well, I cut one of the stair railings wrong. Totally wrong!

And I cried. Ugly cried. Sobbed. I don’t know if I was just so tired and sore and just wanted to be done or if I just felt like a complete failure. But it was bad. I don’t remember the last time I cried that hard or my body hurt this bad.

The lesson here:  Stop when you are tired. You will make mistakes and possibly even injure yourself when working with saws, etc.  Get a good night’s sleep and get after it the next day when you’re fresh.

My mom put things into perspective for me and got to work on trying to find the railing that I needed in stock to try again. After searching and searching she found a railing….a couple of hours away.  My dad volunteered to go get it. It took him two ferry rides and 5 hours to bring it back home.

When I woke up I felt so much better and was ready to read the instructions again and begin. I needed some help on this installation so I called on my daughter to help. She is really smart and I needed another hand and brain to work on the stair railings. Together we successfully mapped out the first railing and where I would need to cut.

There was absolutely, positively NO more room for error. And I was so terrified to cut the railings again. The railings really took some brain power. I measured a few times, just to be sure and then held my breath as I made the cuts.

Sigh of relief. THEY WERE PERFECT!  I was back!  And then we had to go through all the same thought process and work on the second railing.

 

After the railing went in it was time to install the TREX matching fascia board around the perimeter of the deck frame. This would take the deck to a whole new level!  I wanted it to look really substantial so I opted for a 12″ wide board. They were heavy and my mom ended up helping me as much as she could with them.

There were a few hiccups, mostly because we were using the off-brand screw from another composite deck line and that was causing a lot of issues.  But, we figured it out and got them installed and WOW! They look great!

The stair railing and the fascia boards took us all of day six but we finished it, cleaned up and put the furniture and new fire pit on the new, beautiful deck!  That night we enjoyed a cool evening out by the fire with wine and laughed about all the things that went wrong while simultaneously admiring the beauty of their new space.

We opted for these solar post topper lights in lieu of the ones that came with the railings. They are so cute at night and give some additional comfort and warmth to the wooded retreat.

YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS! Something always happens, that can be expected,  and DIY can be hard.  It can challenge you, excite you, deflate you, and reward you all in one run.  But it is so worth it!  Coming next? The Final Reveal, everything we ordered, and cost breakdown.