In the North Carolina mountains where I have my design practice, there’s practically no such thing as a flat building lot. Many sites drop 20 feet or more along the side of the house, and it’s not uncommon to find basements with sweeping views of distant mountains. Those sorts of slopes are a challenge in any number of ways, including one that I see again and again — how to design a good-looking back or side deck in a setting where the support posts are much more prominent than the deck itself. For a deck that will be reached from an upper level, that can be an issue even on
