One of the biggest challenges most people face is how to design their deck. Watch Adrian Simunovic deal with a typical problem as he provides deck design ideas and insights on how to best design your deck to suit your home.
Video Transcription
Hi, I’m Adrian Simunovic from Paradise Decks and Landscape Design, and in this segment I want to talk about deck design ideas as they relate to the configuration and the style of the home.
When we were first called in to consult on this project, the homeowners had already received a number of designs. The only direction they had been given to that point was that they needed to create a large space because these people love to entertain.
In all the cases, all the deck plans seemed to involve either spreading the deck along the entire back of the house, or to break it up into numerous levels. In both cases those designs were stealing from the premium feature of this home, which is the natural light entering into these large lower windows.
What we decided to do is take most of the living space and push it off to one side of the property. This in effect opened up these windows and preserved the natural light entering into the lower level.
Because we wanted to occupy a fairly large footprint of the deck to one side of the property, it necessitated that we would have to pull the deck deeper into what is a fairly shallow yard, creating a landscape design challenge. We addressed that issue with some landscaping ideas, including softening the perimeter of a high deck with some well appointed plantings and some large spruce trees buffering the furthest edge of the deck.
Because we did create such a large deck space on this side, we had the opportunity to create a living space below the deck. We incorporated a rock garden with running water, which is an interesting feature that can be viewed from this lower level while providing nice sound for those using the deck above.
We wanted to create a connection with the yard and the upper deck. Obviously we needed to put in a staircase. More often than not, deck design ideas are purely functional: getting from the upper deck to the lower deck — one long run of stairs.
My feeling is that stairs can become an interesting architectural feature unto themselves. The way we’ve designed these stairs is to break it into various levels — it’s an interesting landscape design feature that I call a cascade effect, almost like a waterfall. It serves two purposes: it makes the transition to the lower level more comfortable, and visually it’s quite a striking feature.
