Finishing Touches

Perched in full view of the road as it is and with only trellis fencing, the deck seems less like a private area of garden and more like a theatre stage. We build three tables out of the remaining wood and perch big pots with climbing plants, to try and shield the view a little. To date this is still the least successful aspect of the deck. I may yet get radical and tear down the trellis in favour of fancy panels.

We also need plant troughs, furniture and of course a deck like this must have a BBQ. We shop around a lot and settle on a decently sized gas BBQ and some ornate stone troughs. These items cost a fair bit of money, but they will be permanent features of the deck and are worth it. For the furniture though we reason that how we use the deck will evolve and change over time, putting expensive wooden furniture on the deck will constrain that flexibility, plastic resin furniture may not be as attractive, but it has the virtues of being cheap, easily cleanable and disposable. We are now on our second set of plastic furniture and have no desire to change this stance. The disposable approach has also applied to putting cheap gazebos and a even currently a little greenhouse at the far end of the deck.

One of the final touches was electricity, lighting and even a network connection. These items are pretty frivolous though. This is not Spain, Australia or Florida, this is in England, we enjoy a lot of BBQs on our deck, but the number of occasions where it has got dark and is still pleasantly warm are few and far between, the time between lights going on and people retreating inside is always on the short side.

Oh and what of the good old railway sleepers I bought at the start of the project? For some weeks to come visitors were given a pair of gloves and invited to help hump a sleeper down to beneath the deck. Some people might lug these around for a living, but even after all the weeks of decent exercise building the deck I found them damnably heavy. But they eventually got there and were used to help landscape the little remaining slope, including a level pathway under the edge of the deck. It makes a great area for children to play and make a den. As under the deck is accessible, and as it is now easy to get down the hill, the usable garden area has effectively doubled.