Deck ceilings - Spring 2015

We specified tongue and groove 1x6 boards for the deck ceilings.  They were to get stained before putting them up, so were done by me wholesale, one after the other in the garage in the early summer.  I set up a decent run where I could do a dozen boards at a time.  I would run the back side the first night, then flip for he show side, then run a second coat on the show side the second night (only one on the back).  It got crowded in the garage:

That took a good 2 weeks to get everything stained as it was 2 full evenings for each set.  You can see the already stained ones peeking around the front of the car, and the stack of unstained boards at the upper right.

I also had to add additional framing to cut down on the span as these are only 1x's.  This is the upstairs balcony, but they all got the same treatment:

Having left these ceilings, and the attached soffit open for the first winter, we had some roommates that had decided to move in.  There were a few squirrels living, or just enjoying the cabin experience up in the soffit across the garage side.  before the ceilings could be put in, these guys had to go.  The soffit ran from the kitchen deck (shown below) to the screen porch, so they had access at both ends.  We closed up the screen porch to force them one way, and set traps there.  Within 2 days I had 2 dead squirrels.  Shortly after, one more joined their friends in the great Nut Tree in the Sky.  If there were any more left, they beat feet for the forest as I ran out the kitchen deck, but left a couple traps as the only access point, and nothing showed up (Photo 3rd down):

You can see the ports way down at the end.  I left those for a few days as this was now the only way in or out.  With no hits after that time, I figured they were all gone, so I finished it off (and have seen no signs since).

So here are some of the completed ceilings:

There was a little remaining trim work to be done up there, most of which got completed in the fall, just before the weather turned bad (no photos - still needs to be painted...)