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We purchased our new construction home 2.5 years ago and have suffered the brutal afternoon sun every summer. We have purchased 6 different gazebo type things and each of them has been destroyed by storms. This spring we want to add a real roof and I plan to add marine fabric curtains at each corner for additional sun screening and privacy.
I originally thought of a pergola type roof and adding a marine fabric canopy but after this summers screened porch I have decided that would not withstand the wind during storms either.
What are our options for a roof? The deck is about 9X9 and is a little over 6' off the ground. The deck posts are in the ground with concrete and are 6X6's.
We are completing the wooden fence this weekend and plan an additional 16X16 deck at ground level next spring as well as extensive landscaping. We have a small indoor dog and a 5 year old child so we really want our yard finished soon.
I would look into an aluminum roof. There's one on this house that's been here for almost thirty years, and occasionally we get bad storms. It made it through 60 mph winds a couple years ago, and will hold a couple feet of snow, but I usually rake it off anyway.
There are fabric manufactured awnings and tents that will survive high winds. They are not cheap.
Moss is one manufacturer, but their website is not geared towards homeowners these days.
From the pictures, it's a little hard to see what's there for posts and footers. It's likely that it would need a lot more support for a wood framed roof and shingles.
This looks like a great opportunity to instill some architectural flair to the backside of your house while also addressing your need for shade.
It it doubtful that you will be able to sister onto the existing porch posts in order to support an arbor, but that should not deter you.
A good structural engineer can calculate your new piers and post size which will come up along side of the other supporting posts.
A designer might come up with a over head structure that uses a ledger board to hang the new rafters off of and then a variety of roof types can be determined.
I guess I must live a sheltered life because I have never seen a tastefully constructed metal porch roof.
To my minds eye they all look like cheap mobile home appendages , and quite frankly your architecture deserves much better than that.
A good landscape architect or architect who does alot of decks, patios and terraces would be a great place to start as far as innovative ideas on how to really make the back of your architecture sing.
Or if you know what you want and it is fairly simple in its layout then go to a structural engineer and have him calc and draft up the plans for construction.
Check out a couple of paperback books by both Sunset Publishing and Taunton Press on outdoor patios.
Taunton has a new revised book coming out on this subject either this November or the following November.
And Sunset will re release a new book on trellis's arbor and patio roofs again sometime around November too.
We'll have work published in both books .
It looks like a builder's style house to me, deviant. What architectural style would you call it?
Sorry about your sheltered existence...maybe you could look into copper roofing. A good architect probably wouldn't consider sistering those posts, they would add more.
Hard to say what kind of style it is without seeing the entire house but from the back it looks to be a contractors styled version of a current day saltbox .
Copper roofing?
I don't know about your clientele but I consider ours pretty affluent and we haven't installed a copper roof in over 15 to 20 years.
We currently have a copper roofed potting shed on the drafting table and that may be scaled back to another material due to cost.
Heck, just copper gutters can put put the client back 10 to 25 thousand.
A good architect probably wouldn't consider sistering those posts, they would add more. - agree. If you re read my post you will see that I mentioned that this would not be an option.
attached are some photos of just a small fraction of the decks that we have designed and installed.
Claypa,
No first person plural.
The 'we' is our company.
I am one of the principals and the founding partner in a design + build firm , so I guess you can call me the queen bee.
Spelling is not my strong suit but this did not seem to bother my editor (s) at Taunton in either the book or magazine divisions nor has it presented itself a problem with any of the other periodicals and publishing companies that I have written for or been featured in.
To address the style of home question - I actually have no idea. It is a tri-level, very common in our building area. The thing we liked about ours is that it looks completely different from front to back and nothing like the rest of the tri levels on the street. I am adding lots of craftsman details, like leaded glass garage door windows, new front door with leaded glass, new light fixtures, etc. Here is the picture enhanced by our landscaper last spring before we made any of the upgrades this summer. So far the monkey grass at the street has been added, the Leyland’s on the left front (are about 7' now), the maples on the sides, the bird bath on the left with flower bed, a new flower bed under the window that wraps around the side, we planted jasmine along the right and left front property lines, but it did not came back this summer (what a waste of $250.00 so we must find something else to put there), and the fence is being completed this weekend.
My initial idea was adding a ledger board just under the windows above the deck and building some type of framework with two supporting post to the front of the existing deck and having a permanent scalloped edge awning made from marine fabric.
"My initial idea was adding a ledger board just under the windows above the deck and building some type of framework with two supporting post to the front of the existing deck and having a permanent scalloped edge awning made from marine fabric."
Sounds like a good and easily doable idea.
I would probably take your basic idea and expand upon it with the addition of making the awning from sunbrella fabric and have it detractable on either a runner or use in a similar way the sail shades are used ( google will bring up this unique awning system )
I might explore the look of using a double 6x6 or 8x8 post instead of a single post or extend a decorative concrete pier up out of the ground so that the posts don't look like two scrawny tooth pick rising out of the ground and supporting your upper cross members.
Then to finish up the detailing I would reccommend that you pain the railings the same color as your trim so that the decking / arbor structure looks like it is part of the house and not an after thought add on.
It will blend the structure in with the house more visually.
Kindasimpl, my neighbor around the corner, had a similar structure built in their backyard as described with the retractable sunbrella awning. They used Greek styled pillars with their deck (alot closer to the ground than what yours appear though) as well as Greek themed landscaping. We lined up to admire the work in progress and after completion. She really could have charged an admission fee to defray the costs!...Nice work Deviant, very impressive! You are definitely the "QUEEN BEE" in outdoor designs!
Thanks Michelle for your input on this topic. Your work is always top notch and inspirational. It is funny how the pressure treated lumber deck has become so standard. Homeowners agonize over house and trim colors, windows, shutter styles and other details and then slap a square wooden structure on the back of the house. I don't mean any disrespect to you kindasimpl, or the millions of others with similar decks and I also understand that most of us cannot spend $100k on a patio or deck, but I do think that it makes sense to at least think about how we can best allocate our budget to create outdoor spaces that are both functional and attractive additions to our homes.
That ShadeTree link is great. The slideshow has some very attractive decks and patios. Now if I could just sell my "old" house I could move forward on making deck plans for my "new" house.
i have a 1930s craftsman and not a huge budget. we put an addition on ourselves and saved lots of$. we are now putting in our own patio. re doing our deck next year. the good thing about craftsman style is the emphasis is on the quality of workmanship- not expensive materials. it takes more time but not too much money. we are putting a stone wall under our deck and painting it to match our house. total cost $0. (we have access to stone and leftover paint)
on the other hand, with a new house,log cabin or chalet, which are all common around here, the plain deck looks ok.
kindasimpl-my dream is a wraparound porch with a swing though, which is what i would put on your house if your budget allows. with a round gazebo thing on the corner like you see on old victorians.
What I have done on my deck, was that I went to a hardware store/home remodeling store and purchased the 8 foot metal pipes that are about 1 3/4 inch thick. The store also had metal feet that the poles went into and corners for up at the top. I stood one of them on each corner of the deck and then screwed the bottom foot plate onto the deck, then on the edge of the railing I used a clamp things that was like a half circle with a screw hole on each side to hold the pole tight against the porch.
This way I didn't have to worry about a prefab gazebo thing not being the right size or smaller poles. So the existing deck gave support. I ran a pole along the top all the way around and down the middle with the different connectors that they sell for tents.
Then I bought fabric and being a seamstress, sewed velcro strips along the sides. I also bought a white tarp to put up first, and then the fabric underneath it. I just zip stripped the grommets on the tarp to the poles.
Living in the St. Louis area, we recently had a huge wind storm with winds about 80 miles an hour. we were without power for 5 days due to all of the damage in the area. My tarp blew off, some of the grommets and the zip strips stayed on the poles. I can easily put new grommets on the edges. The fabric also blew off, but, the velcro made it come off and not get torn in anyway.
At first I thought I would save and get a wooden roof or something built, but I really love the coziness of the fabric and lightness.
In this picture you can also see the "sunflower tree" that brought me to this site in the first place
