Their new deck gives them more space, garden access, storage

Sunset, June, 1988

Their new deck gives them more space, garden access, storage A gracious transition from the house to a lower garden, this two-part deck expands the house's outdoor entertaining area and adds needed storage for barbecue and garden equipment. The new deck is an expansion of an undersize dead-end platform outside the living room door. Then, the only way down to the back garden was out through a side door and back along a cramped path. Owners Debbie and Bill Nicholson asked landscape architect John Herbst, Jr., of Lake Oswego, Oregon, to design a deck remodel that not only gave them more space and easy garden access but also that they could build themselves. Although it took the Nicholsons over a year to complete, they followed Herbst's plans to the letter--and estimate that they saved $10,000 in labor costs. The original deck was an 8- by 10-foot concrete platform supported at its perimeter by a concrete-block wall. The new upper deck alone measures 15 by 30 feet. Rimmed by 2-by-4s, all deck surfaces are toenailed 2-by-2s spaced with 1/8-inch-thick squares of tempered harboard. Stairs lead down to a 12-foot-square platform and two smaller platforms that serve as broad steps to the back garden. By breaking into the old deck's foundation and extending the side walls, Herbst created an 8- by 17-foot storage room beneath. Built like a miniature house, the squat room has its own slab floor, stud walls, and an almost flat, hot-mopped roof. The deck rests on sleepers covering this roof. The doors masking the storage area don't call attention to themselves: they're faced in the same cedar siding that covers the rest of the house. For wind protection and privacy from a neighboring house, a trellis-topped 6-foot-tall wing wall runs along one side of the deck. In time, the 30-inch-wide trellis will be covered with a clematis vine being trained up from the garden below.

PHOTO : The tree stayed put, but the deck has grown--from a shy platform (right) barely big enough

PHOTO : for a picnic table to a dramatic trunk-embracing area that flows down into garden

PHOTO : Storage shed under extended deck gets rain protection from a roof of its own, beneath deck

PHOTO : framing