The building inspector stopped by for an inspection. . .

I was able to schedule an appointment with the town building inspector for 1 PM today for the structural inspection.  Passing the inspection today is important because without it I won't be able to progress this weekend.  The only thing left to do before he came was install cross bracing between the 6x6 posts and the headers.  I find I can't sleep well if I have something that needs to be done, and true to form, I woke up early today.  After breakfast and coffee, I got to work.

The cross bracing are 2x4's cut at a 45 degree angle and are just under 4' long.  I played around with the length until I was happy with the proportion of the braces with the rest of the deck. After cutting each 2x4 brace to length, I created a quick jig to position the brace onto the post. In all, there were 10 braces that were attached by deck screws.

After the bracing was done, I started to install some blocking between the joists to make everything nice and rigid.  I strung a string 6' out from the house, then cut 2x10 scraps to 14.5" long and screwed them into place.  Halfway through I got a ruler, measured along the top of the deck, and realized that the joists were starting to get off 16" centers.  Darn.  Keeping things on 16" centers is important as the decking plank ends should fall right onto the joist.  I had to pop a few blocks out and cut them down slightly.

About noon, I was about halfway through with the blocking and took a quick break for lunch.  I figured that I could finish the blocking after lunch before the building inspector came by at 1 PM.  Good plan, except the building inspector came by about 5 minutes after I went in for lunch. . . 

After he walked around, he said he was "a happy camper," gave me some pointers for the final inspection, and signed me off!  With that, I cleaned up the site and quit early.  I have to go to Lowe's before work to get a couple of supplies for the weekend.