Sky Deck Renovation

I believe you have missed your calling. Nice work!

Nice work! Glad to see you are continuing along with quality installations.

Awesome!

The staircase.

I can't find a photo of the original "fireplace" under the stairs (electric heater), but this is a photo from another SkyDeck showing what it looked like:



And here's mine, after I took out the fireplace heater and started to open up the wall:



Well, this can of worms just kept getting bigger. The fireplace was cool, but I couldn't abide having all that space closed up, with only a tiny storage door to access it from outside.

A little further along:



Okay, now we'd come to the moment of truth. First, yeah, I want that space to be usable from the inside. But two big questions: is that staircase really worth keeping? And come to think of it, do I really even like that banister?



To ask the questions was to answer them:









While the staircase was out, I wallpapered that wall with marine vinyl, since I like that hatch open whenever possible. They make some really nice patterns, and this one looked just like some I'd had in my last house:



Fortunately, my son is a master stairmaker... he builds custom and curved staircases. This was not much of a challenge, but he built it with nothing but measurements called in, and when we moved it into place, it was so perfect we gasped.






That's all the posting I can do tonight. Thanks for your interest.

Getting the bathroom plumbed and the shower and toilet in were the next priority. I bought these expensive acrylic panels for the shower. The manufacturer sent this silly two-sided tape and two tubes of adhesive per panel. Mark Washburn and his guys were beside themselves at the thought. They use trowels, not caulk guns, for things like that, and there was no way they were going to tack it up and go home.

So, instead, they braced it with a vengeance overnight:



Marine vinyl on the bathroom ceiling:



This next photo jumps ahead a bit, but you can see the shower plumbing in the wall. Lines go up to meet copper (they were out of lead), and then the shower head is above the ceiling you see here:



Shower installed:



I'll put more interior photos later. I love this sink, but I have to admit, I could have gotten a smaller one and had countertop space.

With the roof cleared off...


(hatch)


(seat back-railings)

I decided I didn't really like that rubber membrane roof, and we decided to replace it with hard (more expensive) fiberglass in the lower deck area, going back with rubber on the front area. The upside was that it was much nicer to walk on and would be more durable and long-lasting. The downside was that you couldn't roll it over the top edge so that water would run off easily. Water doesn't run off as easily, but I'm VERY happy I did it. I am up on that roof every day it's not raining.







Ice on the new rubber membrane roof:

Okay, I'm back. Thanks for the poke, Satellite Bill.

So, back in the summer, we took the Sky Deck down to Washburn Engineering in Lattimore, NC, just outside Shelby:



I can't say enough good about Mark Washburn and his guys. If you ever need work done and you're on the east coast, I can't imagine another shop like theirs. So, the first thing we did was take it inside...



And open up the roof, where there was a leak at the corner of the hatch (rubber membrane roof):



So they took off all the seating and rubber membrane, and this is what they found:





...and the area around the skylights was not too dry either:

Hey Bill, just got out on parole! Glad you inquired, I've been meaning to keep the story going. I'd say I'm over halfway there, with the most important work done.

Got great help from Washburn Engineering in Lattimore, NC. More on them soon. Did major work to roof, adding hard fiberglass to sky deck area and fixing water damage. Functional bathroom, new stairs. Some cool modifications underneath to winterize. New staircase. Now parked on my lot while I do everything but resume work on interior.

I will get my photos together and start updating some evening this week.

Did this guy just fall off the face of the Earth?

Now that is a bathroom!:)