I've been wanting(partly because my wife is wanting) to build a deck for a while and don't have the funds for the normal avenues to get materials. I've built some monster decks in the past with my dad and would like to build another one at my house for both obvious deck having and father son project reasons. My wife and I are thinking of a fairly plain deck on the bottom and then a simple pergola/deck (deck portion to extend 3 ft of so into the pergola) off our bedroom. We already have a sliding door to nowhere from our bedroom from when the insurance replaced the windows on that side of the house (door was the same price as a window and I got to sawzall a hole in the house, woot!), now we just need to make it safe for a junior who will be mobile sometime soon. I've checked craigslist for extra building materials but just miss out on them. I'd be fine starting with just the framework and adding decking later. So, any of you have tricks for hooking that stuff up? Any of you have a line on extra materials? Let me know what your secretz is!