Hot Tub Heaven

So my neighbor, Kevin-the-attorney, bought a hot tub for his deck. It's great. They love it, the kids love it after sports, but at 7'x7' it took up a good portion of his current 400 square foot deck. So I said, let's build out the deck and sink the tub for a custom look. Good times all around as far as I'm concerned. We had lots of high school aged boys for the post hole digging and heavy lifting. We laid out a couple of designs and settled on a trapezoid that would tie in seamlessly to the old deck. Our plan actually calls for two decks as you can see from the underneath shot. We started by building an 8'x8' square deck about a foot off the ground. This deck is set on four 6"x6" posts with 2"x12" beams and joists. This is what the tub sits on. It is completely freestanding and does nothing but carry the weight of the tub and water. Once we built it and sited the tub, we built the rest of the deck around it. It is completely freestanding and literally floats around the hot tub. Thankfully the existing deck had its posts right on the rim joists so tying in was easy. We situated the joists strategically and screwed in the decking on one side so there is access to the tub's maintenance panel. At first we we're just going to go with railings like the existing deck, but then my brother-in-law, Mark-the-architect, (DANGER, DANGER, WHEN EVER AN ARCHITECT SHOWS UP IT'S GOING TO COST YOU MORE MONEY) showed up and suggested seating. Well, while it cost a little more in time and money, it really made the deck. The seats in my opinion really make the whole deck and area around the tub usable. We built the seat stringers/supports using a simple upside down 4, attached them the deck support posts that run into the ground and we had amphitheater seating. We were also careful to incline the back supports to the seats for max comfort. I hate decks with 90 degree seats. That's taking the easy way out. Anyway, we finished it off with 7' stairs that empty into the backyard. We still need to run lattice along the skirts, but all in all a good time was had by all. Now to go enjoy 10 or 12 cold ones in the tub.