Backyard Deck & Patio Designs

Hello

 Today we are blogging about backyard designs for outdoor living. Reviewing some of the projects we designed from last year. Hope we can inspire you !

Oakland Township MI deck & landscape design

Washington Township MI deck design with brick columns, and brick patio.

Rochester Hills MI deck design with patio and landscaping.

Clinton Township covered porch and landscaping design.

 Washington Township raised brick patio and landscape design.

 Rochester Hills deck and patio design.

Bloomfield Hills MI landscape design

Rochester MI deck and landscape design

Deck builders in Michigan !

Deck designs from 2013 - Adding flair to a square deck.

Well it is Mid-January 2014 and we have had a hard winter here in Michigan so far ! But the deck building season is quickly approaching.  We are going to look back at some of the deck designs we did in 2013. Starting with adding flair to a square deck. 

Hopefully we can inspire you on your new outdoor living projects for 2014 !  

 A basic square deck design has many benefits  -

   1)  Cost / Waste: These two go hand and hand with decking lengths at 12', 16' & 20' ... Railings at 6' and 8' lengths... Framing lengths from 8' - 20'  Designing around these sizes will have many benefits !

  2)  Space: Obviously a square deck design is going to give you the most space.

  3) Footings/framing: Ease of construction labor time/cost is a big benefit.

 How to spice up a simple square deck design.

Octagon Bay

Here is a deck and patio project in Clarkston MI.

The layout of the house kind of dictated a simple square deck design. What we did to the design to add a little flair was to add a corner bay which creates a octagon effect.


Another nice feature about this deck design is the way the stairs wrap around the deck which keeps them out of site and away from the main outdoor space.

Here is another new construction deck project in Clarkston MI

 

 Before picture -










 Center Bay


 This is a simple square deck design, but with a center triple angled bay to add a little flair to the design. This deck only has two main support post and a engineered beam carries the span between the beam which is a nice feature with a walkout basement underneath the deck. The stairs on the deck design were changed by the homeowner to a single stair case.

Cut Corners

Troy MI deck project
Here is another simple square deck design with double cut corners with the stairs coming off the cut corner. The basic idea is just to spice up a simple square deck design with the double cut corner.

 Deck builders in Michigan, Michigan deck designs, Michigan decks !

Thanks for reading !

Deck building in Rochester Hills MI

Hello Everyone !

 Well it is the middle of March and the winter weather is still holding on here in Michigan. Despite that, we have already started the Michigan deck building season !

 Today we are going to look back at a Timber Tech XLM deck project from last year.  On this project there was an existing wood deck that was in need of updating. So we removed the old deck and did a slight re-design of the old deck layout.

 He is the before picture, you can see the old deck had two different levels which for a deck this size was a bit of a design flaw, the space was to small for different levels. At about 400 square feet one level is the best option to get the most functional space.

Here is the new deck design that is all on one level with a seam board to give the effect of the dual levels, but where you can use all the deck space without worrying about falling down a step.

Here is a picture of the center seam board which has a two part use, one it can divide the deck into unique spaces or separate deck spaces for different functions on the deck like dining areas verses lounging areas etc.. The second part is it divides the deck boards into sizes that work best for cost & waste. Deck boards come in 12', 16' and 20' pre-cut sizes. So the seam board divided this deck into 16' and 12' sections

The other thing to notice is the deck surface is completely fastener free, the Timber Tech XLM decking is a grooved product that uses a Concealoc clip to hold the decking in place. The seam board and the border are screwed down with the Cortex plug system which is a really cool product.

Here in the picture below where we are installing the Cortex screw/plugs on the treads. 

The railings are Timber Tech Black Radiance rail, There is also Trex low voltage lighting riser lights and rail lights in black.

Here are some final pictures of this custom PVC deck project in Rochester Hills MI. 

                                        Thanks for reading our blog ... !    Michigan deck builders

Rochester Hills Composite Deck Construction

Hello Bloggers !


 Today we just closed out the first month of 2013 and business is already picking up, spring is just around the corner ! The Michigan Deck Building season usually starts up in March so we have a little time to keep updating our blog. Today we are going to review a Rochester Hills composite deck project.

 This is a Timber Tech Evolution Rosewood deck with black Timber Tech Radiance Rail.

 Here is the deck design pictures

This composite deck is 13' x 36' with a 2' bay that matches the house door wall bay. There is a double center seam board that splits the deck in two sections to allow the 16' & 20' deck boards to span without butt seams.

 Here you can see the decking has been installed except for the picture frame border. I have mentioned this many times in previous blog posts one of the main keys in building a deck is the picture frame border. Which when it is done right will protect the gap of the fascia/framing materials. Because the fascia board underneath the border board.

See the picture below how the picture frame border hides or protects the fascia that is underneath, kind of a drip edge effect.

 Here Paulie is working on installing the deck railings - Timber Tech Radiance Rail on the bay. The Radiance Rail has been on the market for better then seven years and it is still the nicest synthetic deck railing that is on the market. It is better made, nicer looking, and much stronger then the Trex Transcends rail or any of the other synthetic manufactures railings.

 Here you can see the bay once the railing is completed.

Here is a picture from the underside of the deck focusing on the stair stringers. You can see how we attached our stringers to the deck rim. We drop another rim board underneath the upper rim, bolting them together and strapping the stringers to the lower rim board.

 Here we are still working on the railings and the next steps is to install the fascia's on the deck and stairs. This set of steps has a mid-point platform that allows us to turn the steps ninety degrees back towards the house and the garage for ease of egress for the homeowner.

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Here is finished look of the stairs from the deck.










Here is a close up of our signature triple stack fascia, again let me first point out how the fascia is dropped underneath the picture frame border. This picture shows where the stair fascia butts into the deck fascia, and how we cut little returns on the different tiers of the fascia and glue. You can see the blocks holding the returns in place.

 Here is the outside finished look of the stairs, notice how the stair fascia ends nicely into the triple stack fascia and they are at just about the same depth.

Here a little close up picture of the bay and the triple stack deck fascia.

 Thanks for reading our blog !

Composite deck construction in Michigan