{The Deck} Stairs

Now that the deck floor is complete, the stairs and railing need to be finished. My dad took over the construction of the stairs (I don't think the others minded at all!) and aren't they great? I mentioned in the last deck post that there is quite a drop off from the deck to the patio and this shows it well. It's big enough for our dogs to go under the deck for shade and even Lily can walk under some of it. There's a slope to our yard and a slight slope in the patio, but not much. 

Here are the dogs enjoying the new deck and stairs. You can see the start of the railing going up on the left side. We chose to go with 4x4 posts and hog panel (or maybe combo?) for the sides. It's very similar to how we constructed Lily's play yard last summer, so there's some cohesiveness in the back yard. There is a large combo panel in Lily's Garden for a trellis and we may use the left over piece for a future trellis in the back yard as well. 

There's a slight problem though... if you look at the photo above, there's not much height from the privacy fence from the deck to the of the fence. In the photo above, Doug's grill will eventually go up against the fence, overlooking Lily's Garden. However, we don't have it up yet and are even thinking of buying a new grill (that was supposed to be Doug's birthday present after all). So, as we feared, my stupid dog Zoey (the brown one in the picture) decided she wanted out of the fenced in yard and jumped it. It's a SIX FOOT privacy fence, so the deck is her only option over it. Luckily we were sitting in our dining room at the time and I saw a blur go through Lily's Garden, so I ran to the front door and there she was, ready to come inside. So now I'm on a mission to figure out an extension idea for the top of the fence that would look good from both sides.