Bethlehem - Composite Deck and Balustrade Fence

The clients came to us because they had just purchased the house. It is a lovely place with an amazing view, looking out towards Mount Maunganui. Being able to see the water, and the ocean out there, and wanted to make the most of that.

When they bought the house, they had a lot of overgrowing landscape, an overgrown garden, trees, and shrubs, and it had pavers all the way around the house. it was also multileveled because of the way they built the house. It was tiered down retaining making it a really small outdoor area.

The client's brief was that they would like a low-maintenance option for decking that they didn't have to worry about for years to come. They didn't have to re-apply oil, they didn't have to paint, they didn't have to stain. They just wanted low-maintenance, long-lasting, nice-looking decking with the same for the balustrade fence around the edge. So that's where the composite decking came in.

Project Outline

They selected the silver gum option for the colour. It matched really nice with their house and with the colour scheme that they wanted moving forward with the internal work that they're doing.

We removed all the trees, we removed all the garden, and all the shrubs lifted the pavers and flattened it all out to match the internal floor height of the house across the whole area.

Approximately 190 m² of the additional area was added to the outdoor, which is the equivalent of a decent-sized house added to their property, of usable space right out to their boundaries on two sides of the property.

The fencing they had installed was powder-coated, custom-made aluminium louvre panels and slat panels for different areas of depth as the balustrade fence. That was all surface fixed with stainless coach screws down into the framing.

Yard Preparation

The composite decking is Silver Gum with a hidden screw and clip system, which is a solid clip system that mounts to the timber frame.

We then fix our decking to that clip system so it's perfectly spaced, and all the lines are perfectly straight. We had over 35 meters run down the side of the house of decking and it's really important that those lines are very straight.

Our clip system allows for that and makes it come up amazing with the composite decking. The boards are milled to a high quality and machined really well, the machining on them needs to be pretty exact so that the spacing stays the same and it looks consistent on those long runs.

The Materials

We also had deck lighting installed, uplights into the deck around the exterior, lighting up just a bit of mood lighting on the balustrade fence. The uplights cast a bit of light around the deck to create a nice atmosphere early evening and night when they're having their friends and family over for dinner. Having a space for hosting was one of their biggies.

We also set the deck up in a way where there's a stage two coming around the back of the house, where once some earthworks are completed in the neighbouring section with retaining wall being put in.

We can then add stage two of the deck and continue it around continuing the same style of decking and the same style of balustrading around that portion of the house as well. So that will add even more reclaimed space to the property

Finished Product

Before & After

You can see from the before and after, there's quite a dramatic yard transformation, which is our passion at Klinks, it's the yard transformations which we love to do.