Milly,

We have just finished our deck which was 5 x 7m & 1.5m off the ground. We did everything ourselves except the footing holes which we got an excavator to do. We used hardwood which is a little bit more expensive than pine and all up it cost us about $6500. I had a good mate of mine who works for a building firm specialising in outdoor decking and he quoted us about $11000 and that was with a discount on the labour. We only worked on weekends and I had a lot of help from friends, I just needed to put on a BBQ and a few beers for them which was all well and truly worth it!!

Good Luck