Designing a deck
April 18th, 2008Making a customer happy isn’t always an easy and/or quick thing to do but it’s always worth it.
For a recent customer we had to go through 6 different designs before we settled on a deck design that met both budgetary and aesthetic concerns.
At the first meeting we looked at various magazines and photos the homeowners had collected that showed decks that they liked. After we took measurements and photos of the existing conditions, we went and whipped up a design that had many of the features they desired. We came up with this:
While the customer liked the design it was a little too “simple” looking for them. They wanted some pizzazz. We went back and tweaked the design a bit for them and ended up with this:

They liked the complexity added by the ninety degree stair, but it still wasn’t pizazz-ish enough for them. Back to the drawing board!
We went all out this time, incorporating just about every idea the homeowners had said that they liked:
After incorporating all of the ideas they wanted, they decided (and I agreed) that it just wouldn’t work in the area this deck had to go. They also wanted larger areas of flat space, and they saw a pergola that they liked. On to design #4:
They liked many elements of this design, but decided that they’d like to see something similar but with a roof instead of purlins on the pergola structure. This led us to:
Getting close, but they’ve now decided they’d rather not spend the money on the additional structure. This led us to our fifth and final design.
This is the deck we finally settled on. The next hurdle was the type of decking. Ideally, they wanted to use ipe decking. This is a good choice. However, while you don’t have to oil ipe, if you want it to keep its original color you need to oil it every 6-12 months. Since the homeowner’s preferred the look of oiled ipe, and they’re getting older and don’t want the maintenance, we decided to go with TimberTech’s Tropical Teak composite decking product with their hidden fastener system.










