3 essential steps to design successfully

The design stage is one of the most important parts for your deck project to be successful. Today, we will talk about 3 steps that are essential during the design stage that will help to make your terrace your favorite place.

Clearly define the purpose and who will be using your deck.

The best thing about having a great decking environment at home are the wide variety of activities that you can do in it, and that it can bring excellent benefits to both you and the rest of the people who live in your house.

To get the most out of your space, you must first have a good architectural design of your decking environment; and for this, it is very important that you start by asking yourself the following 3 questions:

Why do I want to have a deck at home?

What purpose would I like to achieve by having a deck?

Who will use my deck?

There is a wide variety of purposes that people can have for a deck depending on their tastes, conditions and the lifestyle they want to have. For example, the following could be some of the purposes some people could have:

• To disconnect and be alone.
• To enjoy some time with your partner.
• To spend more time with the family.
• To enjoy the healthy environment and the comfort of your garden.
• To have some good times with your friends, etc.

From a design perspective, it is important then, that you define the purpose you want to achieve through your deck, before starting your project, since this will become the main objective for your project. The rest of the design process and the construction of your deck should focus on achieving the ideal space for you to achieve your purpose.

Define the type of activities you want to do on your terrace.

Once the 1st step has been completed, the next thing you should do is to carefully analyze the type of activities that you and the other people who will frequently be using your decking space would most like to do on your terrace.

So, if for example you want to use your deck to disconnect and be alone: based on your preferrences ​​you could consider creating a space to relax, listen to music, sleep, meditate, read, exercise, enjoy a drink or eat something outdoors.

On the other hand, if you are looking to spend more time with family or friends in a healthy environment and in the comfort of your garden, you could think about building a decking space that will allow you to sit comfortably in a group or with different separate areas to eat, talk, watch your favorite team play with your friends or enjoy some quiet afternoons having coffee with your best friends.

With all this in mind, to start the design stage, it will be important and very useful that you prepare a list of all the details that you and your family think could make your terrace the environment of your dreams. This will be very useful to the architect when designing your space.

 Define the budget for your decking investment.

Before carrying out the architectural design of your environment, you must also clearly define the budget you are willing to pay to build your project. This step is very important, since it would be a waste of time to design something that you will not be able or will not be willing to pay for later.

Having a budget for your deck is also very important because it will guide you when considering the different types of materials, spaces and accessories that you can include in your design.

Don't have the budget but would like to have the space of your dreams? 

Often enough, people do not have all the budget required to make the complete decking environment as they would like to have it. Above all, there are projects that, due to their great complexity and the amount of accessories they have, could end up costing a quite considerable amount of money which goes beyond most people's reach.

For example, imagine that the decking space of your dreams includes a deck, a railing, a pergola, a Jacuzzi and a "Fire Pit" system. It often happens that people don't have the money to build such a deck with all these accessories at once, so they decide to postpone their project until they save the entire amount. If this is your case, it is important that you know that, according to our experience, the vast majority of people who decide to do this, never manage to create the space of their dreams; and the reason is that they always end up spending their savings on other things.

So, if you are one of those people who would really like to have a very special deck, you will be pleased to know that there are really easy and accessible ways to achieve it.

Learn here how to build the deck of your dreams, in an easy and accessible way.

The easiest and most affordable way to build a complete deck environment that has many areas or accessories if you don't have the entire budget is to do it in stages. In our experience, people who really set their minds to it and plan properly end up building their entire decking space in a much quicker time frame than they had initially projected. This usually happens because once people complete the first stage, they realize the benefits of the terrace, so they decide to focus all their efforts on finishing it and adding the "Extra" features they wanted.

Below and as an example, we can see how you could make the terrace if you decide to build it in stages:

1) In the first stage, you could start by making the deck and the railings, leaving the structural base ready but hidden for a future pergola, the jacuzzi and the “Fire pit”. This will allow you to safely enjoy your decking environment with your railing while saving more money for other accessories.

2)In a second stage, you could decide to continue expanding your project by installing a covered pergola to also take advantage of your space during the rainy season.

And later, in the third and fourth stages, you could add the jacuzzi or spa or the “Fire pit” according to your taste, level of preference or amount of money saved.

Conclusion

In short, there are endless reasons why we would want to have a spectacular decking space in the comfort of our own home. Being able to identify the purpose why all the users would want to have your terrace is one of the bases for the success of these types of projects. The task is not easy, especially when considering the various needs of different family members. Having very good experience in the area of design, or with the help of an architect or specialist in the design of decking environments, can be of priceless help for the success of our space.