Getting All Decked Out

We put in our miniature golf in 2004.  Over the years, we have seen steady growth in miniature golfers.  Sometimes it seems like customers are kind of like compound interest.  You don’t start out with many, then you get a few, they tell their friends, then one day you wake up and there’s a line at the miniature golf course.  That’s what happened this year.  It really felt like the miniature golf had finally gotten really busy.

As I mentioned here, we had over 200 miniature golf birthday parties.  They have been steadily growing in popularity over the last few years.  Throughout the summer, we were really hopping around here with parties, so it was time to start thinking about growing our party space.  One day, my mom and I were looking out at the minigolf building and got to brainstorming.  At the end of the brainstorming session, a vision of a deck couldn’t escape my thoughts.  When we had built this minigolf hut, we had a vision of how it would be used.  Over the years, that vision wasn’t a reality, so it was time to do some changing.  It just so happened that Menards was having their infamous 11% sale, so  we were sold.

All of the lumber arrived while we were paving our parking lot, so we were a flurry of activity trying to get things done before the snow decided to make an appearance.

Knowing we had lots of wires in the area where the deck was going to be built, I gave a call to Iowa One Call.  It’s always best to be safe than sorry.  I think we could probably mark these lines ourselves because we’ve had them marked on our property so many times over the years.  Our carpenter marked out the spots where he wanted to put in deck posts.

Iowa One Call came out and basically all of the telephone and gas lines ran nearly right along the lines of our deck posts.

Rather than moving the posts, we decided that we’d hand dig the holes for the deck posts.  By we, I really mean, the guys.

I just showed up to take picture of the holes they dug.  The posts also made nice hat/coat racks.

Once the posts were in and surrounded with concrete, they added the support beams.

Luckily, they never hit a wire or pipe.  These guys are professionals!

Once all of the post were in place, they got to work building the frame.

It was kind of like a fun Christmas gift to all of our miniature golf patrons because Santa was one of the carpenters who built the deck!

They spent a solid two days getting the decking in place.

Without much time to spare before the weather got too ugly, they finished the deck!  Here she is in all her glory!