A Wild Idea For Patios And Decks
We had another huge weekend of home visitors at our various models. If the market is not yet “back” it is doing a pretty good job fooling me this past 2 months! We are having about as good of a prolonged growth period of sales than I have seen in the last 5 years! During this past prolonged home sales slump, I have seen a few weeks where we get encouraged only to see the sales suddenly go dormant again. These were false signs of prosperity and I have become most cautious of proclaiming the home sales slump days are over. But, now with 2 (well almost 2) months of having home sales every week, I am about a month or two away from making my “proclaimation“. By that time, everyone else will already know the good news from media proclaimations.
The home builder is truly on the front lines of this economy recovery. The media only finds about the housing market news a few months after we already know the news. Folks, if you are even remotely thinking about building a home, really, REALLY, now is THE time to pull the trigger before the rest of the World sees this becoming another seller’s market.
I want to tell you about another home design “wild idea” I have been thinking about this past week. The concept again is just me re-thinking the way builders build “normal” homes and asking …WHY? For example, When builder’s have a sloping lot, which allows a walk-out basement, the normal process is to have a deck suspended across the rear of the home and have a set of steps going down from this deck to the lower (basement level) patio. Why do we all seem compelled to put the deck or patio on the back of the home? I asked myself this question and pondered the answers.
The decks or patios we place on the rear of an exposed (walk-out or look-out basement) is because we want the privacy and view that a back yard usually affords us. We also like front porches, but many times folks don’t spend as much time sitting on the ol’ front porch as they do in the rear area of the home. The biggest drawback to having the patio or deck on the rear of the home is that the railings which encircle a suspended deck inevitablyblock the view of the folks who are sitting in the house. Go ahead. If you have a rear deck , think about what view you are seeing when you sit in your living room or dinette (assuming these rooms are facing the rear of the home) and decide to look out the your rear windows. Do you see the pretty view of trees or the lake you have in your back yard ? No. You are usually just seeing the railings of your deck which is hiding your real view. Sure, you can look up or stand up and see over the rails, but seeing down is a huge part of seeing the natural way we humans like to view things. Try standing on top of a mountain and blocking out the bottom of your view so all you see is the upper part. If I had a lake house, I , like many, would plaster the entire back of the homewith abundant windows. Then I would put a big deck across the rear so I could enjoy the lake view from my deck. In doing this most normal design process, I have just negated about half the value of having bought the lake lot in the first place, I have cut my inside (and many outside) window views in half!
I was asked to design a 6,500 square foot homewhich looked out over a huge expanse of trees onto a small private lake which had a small private island in the middle of it. What a unique, captivating view! The owner’s had another home designer draw some plans which failed to excite them so they called me in. They showed me the first design and I pointed out that despite all their huge windows, the deck and the deck railings would be blocking their view. They could have used glass railings but these folks wanted a traditional design and felt glass would look too contemporary.
I suggested they mix glass railings with ornate forged custom iron work railings and feild stone pilasters with lanterns atop each pilaster. The look was surely old world yet the mix of strategically placed glass panels afforded them a great view from seating areas. When you are seated on a deck, the railings are even worse since you can not see over them. My answer was to work with staggering the heights of the deck so as to bring the railings down and out of blocking the seated view. How is this done? Here’s how I did it.
Paint a mind’s eye picture of a large 16 by 20 foot deck with the 20 foot side against the home. When I look out the inside seated great room view, even with NO railings on the deck, I would need to see past the 16 foot of deck board flooring which stops me from being able to view downwards. If you add the deck railings, I now have those darned railings entirely in my view.
Now imagine that same deck takes the 16 foot depth and sinks down the outside 3 feet of the boarder of the deck so you now have a 3 foot sunken walkway going around the deck on the 3 rail sides. You have now lowered the railing from a required 36 inches to a visual 28 inches. Now when I am seated on the 13 foot by 14 foot deck, I can see over the railings. I can also see “better” over the railings from the inside of the home. Yes, this COULD be a tripping hazzard but a few, well placed planters along the perimeter alerts guests to the step down. There may never be a reason to actually step down into this area, it is just a device that protects you from falling over the deck side. Now imagine taking this 2 steps down. All this extra step requires is another 10 to 12 inches of space so instead of having 3 foot of “wasted” deck space, you have 3 foot 10 inches of “wasted” space. BUT, you now have a great view over the 36 inch high railings because the visual top of rail is only 20 inches high! I would argue that this space is NOT wasted at all since it just provided you with an opportunity to see the view that you could not see any other way(unless you resort to more costly glass panel rails. Let’s really dream now and imagine doing this 2-step down deck rail system and then doing these railings in those glass panels. WOW. you now get a real view since the step down does more than get rid of the rail obstructed view, it also maximizes the view since you can now look downward. This is something that glass rail panels alone can not do. You could take this 3 steps down but then code would require you did a safety set of rails for walking down any steps over 2 steps.
If you think this is a neat idea, SO DO I! I have never seen this idea used anywhere except in my mind’s eye. If you have seen anything like this sunken deck rail idea, please let me know. Often times, we humans (that’ me) have a way of seeing something then forgetting we saw it and think the idea is our own. I hope I am not inadvertently doing that here.
The more I thought about this deck and patio placement norm which we all have come to accept as the “only” place to put a deck, my next blog will tell you about a real, far out “wild idea” that I spent the day designing into a cool new model design. You blog readers will be the first to be told my newest deck placement “secret”. I get excited just thinking about it and I can’t wait to share it with you ….next time.
Note: I had a pretty interesting comment about my most recent blog entry about “solar Power..Or Not”. Look for this hot comment and my answer coming soon. Look for this comment and my reply under this “Solar Power …or not” recent blog entry. Check it out!
Blessings,
Tom Hignite
