Karen to the Rescue!

I was really feeling uncertain about how to proceed with the deck so we put the brakes on the project which was just as well because the weather turned nasty and it's doubtful Joe would've been out there doing much anyway. We're experiencing the coldest spring since 1965. Our winters seem to go from one extreme to the other lately.

Karen to the rescue!

We've hired our next-door neighbor, Karen, to help us with much of the design and details of this project. She's an interior designer. I expressed to Karen that before we could move forward I needed to come up with a more complete idea for how we wanted the deck to look. She agreed that with the type of project we're undertaking we'll want a deck that compliments it. I mentioned that I'd either like to somehow break the deck up into a couple of different levels or add and arbor or pergola. We talked quite a bit about what we were looking for in the deck or maybe more-so what we didn't want. She loaded me down with a bunch of magazines to look through for ideas, one of them being magazine on garden structures with various gazebos, arbors, trellises and pergolas. I found one photo in particular that caught my eye and sent her a scan of it.

She got busy.

I got an email from Karen yesterday with a couple of deck design options for us to consider. Of the two options she'd put together, I was really drawn to option 1 (below). The dotted lines represent a pergola which will be patterned somewhat after the one from the magazine in the link above. Click on the photo to enlarge it.

We exchanged a few emails before she followed up with an enhanced view of what the pergola could entail. This was really working for me. Tammy hadn't seen it yet but I knew she would approve.

And to give us an even more complete look, Karen put together these last two images for us complete with a railing so we can allow the pups to sit out there in the sun and police the yard of squirrels and rabbits.

The only question is how much more will this cost to have Joe do for us? We should know soon enough.