Located on Lake Tapps near Tacoma, Wash., this multilevel deck required all of the skills I’ve acquired over my 35-year career as a builder to complete. My coworker and I worked on the project for more than four months, spending at least 40 man-hours alone heat-bending all the custom parts needed to complete the design.
It rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest, so after we framed the structure, we installed EPDM pond liner–membrane drainage systems on top of the joists on both the upper and lower levels to make the structure watertight. The lower deck is completely skirted to match the TimberTech decking, providing the homeowner with dry, secure storage accessed through custom-made doors hung from barn door hardware.
Curved shapes and features figure prominently in the design, including the spiral staircase that provides access to the lower yard. We installed a curved glass guardrail on the stairs and around the entire perimeter of both levels of the deck, mounting the curved tempered-glass panels in Regal ideas CrystalRail brackets. These brackets have built-in LED lamps connected to the deck’s low-voltage lighting system (for more on low-voltage lighting, see “Lighting Up Outdoor Living Spaces,” PDB, Jul/20). The lamps illuminate the edges of the glass panels, providing a dramatic nighttime lighting accent to the entire project. For safety and better visibility while ascending or descending the stairs, we installed in-lite Fusion 22 RVS Dark puck lights in the stair risers.
To create a bit of separation from the neighboring house, we installed Hideaway laser-cut powder-coated aluminum privacy screen panels on both the upper and lower levels of the deck. ❖
Photos by Calvin and Jason Russell.
