North & South

DECK BUILDING FOR DUMMIES

WHEN THE sleep-out was just an unfinished room tacked on to the tractor shed, its muddy pathway was acceptable, but after it had been transformed into a lovely renovated studio as The Playpen, it needed a deck. A builder agreed and quoted $3700.

I didn’t know what to do about that, so I tidied the cottage basement. There, I found some discarded 20mm macrocarpa planks. These

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