Mr. Deck - Projects

The Ultimate Deck

Boy! Talk about flared stairs with some real flair. This multi-deck project opens up a whole new frontier in deck-building.

Click on photos with blue borders for larger view.

This style of deck, with its extensive masonry work, couldn't have been done without plastic planking. Let me remark that the decking, the seating, the railings and the stairs were all constructed from maintenance-free solid-plastic PrimoPlank™.

We weren't sloppy when we built the stone facade walls; it's just that even with all the precautions, the long multi-step masonry process is, in and of itself, messy -- smudges, boot prints and splashes get just about everywhere ... and black-colored grout droppings on light driftwood-colored planking too! But this concrete and black mortar was washed off the plastic planking on repeated occasions with highly caustic muriatic acid and a firm-pad mop without affecting the planking in the least.

These continuous concrete wall-caps are a deck-building first. I had intended to sub-out the masonry portion of the project. Every masonry sub-contractor I interviewed (9 in all) wanted to do the cap in little straight segments or stonework, which each insisted would add up to the overall design.

I felt that it was this continuous ribbon of uniformly thick, smooth concrete -- uninterrupted from end to end -- that was critical to the basic design. And I wanted the curves to go vertical near the corners and terminal ends with a continuous concrete pour. Nobody was willing to take the risk of doing something unfamiliar. So we ended up doing it ourselves along with the rest of the deck.

It was just natural for me to experiment with making the concrete forms for the curved cap from solid-plastic too. And it worked out beautifully!

Another original feature is the set-back seating behind the wall cut-outs. These seats were used in lieu of 3-foot high railings. The distance from the wall's outside edge to the seat's inner rail is 34 inches, a reasonably safe distance back from the 4-foot precipice.

The masonry cut-outs let a sitting person pivot around to face the pool and support their feet on the wall cap. Who really wants to sit and look at a bland 2-story wall anyway when the backyard focus is the pool? Of course, this construct would not be appropriate for little toddlers, but neither would that unguarded swimming pool either.

Every time we finish one of these designer decks I think we've finally gone the limit. But with new materials always coming into the building trades and my experience accumulating, new vistas are always opening up. It's just but a short time afterwards that I'm offered yet another creative opportunity and again we're exploring new territory. From a designer's perspective, it's a trip; from the customer's,
it's a showpiece!

As it appears ... after planting ... and five years

Call it what they will; it's not so "stark" anymore!

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