John,

Look at these photos. You may find this is easier to do.

If you look closely I did not do a straight line down the middle. It zig zags. That allowed me to do a straight cut on the ends and since it was tongue and groove, use the tongue from the previous board to accept a groove I cut in the next board. They were laid one on the right ands then one on the left. The first boards laid were the full length ones that form the center point by the door. You want the center of the zigzag centered on the door, not either of the first two boards. We were very careful to position those first two precisely. We then build towards the door and dropped the last one in place and face screwed it. Once you start building towards the outside it gets easier. The ones that don't hit the straight board can be trimmed in one move once they are all laid.

This is Ipe so we tried to book match the left and right pieces as well. Since there is color variation between boards we saved this part for last and held back the nicest pieces. We also saved it for last since we had no idea how to do it when we started.

One thing I did not anticipate is as the boards expand and contract the front face can get a little bit of variation on it like a sawblade. It doesn't bug me too bad and probably would not be noticable if I put a bandboard around the perimeter. We also just missed on the last piece and have a 1/2 inch sliver missing from the point. I'm sure someone smarter than me could have figured out how to avoid that but no one notices except for me.

Hope this description made any sense. It would go much better if you could see me waving my hands while typing.

After thinking about this some more I thought I would offer some clarifications. I probably over simplified it.

1) In my pattern the first board was the one to the left of the center of the center of the door(I'll call that L1). That piece needs to have the corner clipped off at 45 degrees. You should find the center of the board , then remove a 45 degree piece from there. For T&G the tongue should face forward. The remaining flat piece will need to have a groove cut in it.

2) The second piece is the center right piece(I'll call that R1). You cut it off at a 45 with the tongue side long and the groove side short. This piece gets laid in with the tounge of R1 in the groove you cut in the end of L1. You will then be looking at a V pattern with both tongues facing you.

3) To build out towards the wall you will need to make splines. The splines will go into the groove side of L1 and R1 and allow you to lay up the remaining boards towards the wall. If you are not doing Tongue and Groove you don't have to worry about these details. In my case with the door, I planned on making a threshold extension, so the cuts along the wall did not need to be precise.

4) When you are ready to go away from the house, go back to the left side. Square up the end of the board that will next on the left side, then cut a groove in the squared end. That groove will be received by the tongue of R1. Once set, you go back to the right side and repeat.

I could get into more detail on how I made it fit into the boards that are perpendicular to the house but they may not apply to you and I don't want to bore anybody too badly.

Hope this is helpful, let me know if I need to clarify anything else.

I wanted a similar pattern, but the deck contractor came up with something a little different that might be a little easier. Check out http://www.freestategolf.com/ipe.htm for some pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to pictures of the deck pattern

Hey Erik Dane, Do you or anybody else happen to have photo's of the joist pattern used to support your fancy deck pattern? Did you block the joists or come up with a joist pattern to match the decking, or a combo of the two? I am planning on doing something like that in the next few weeks. Thanks for any information.

cuffemnow,

Unfortunately I don't have any framing pictures but have some with the floor finished.
Either /or - if needed, you can block or adjust your floor framing to recieve the top deck.
Lay it out on graph paper and I'm sure you'll figure it out.
There are so many different ways to do it.

Good Luck,

The PorchGuy

Here is a link that might be useful: My Album