Gate Pa - Timber Deck and Fence

The client had a multi-level property that slopes away from the street. The family built the house many years ago and had taken shape over many years.

We were contending with a lot of additions that had taken place over the life of the house, especially around the outdoor area. There was decking at different heights, staircases and retaining walls all over the place, and garden and landscaping at different levels.

The owner wanted a continuous flow from street level through to the house, the internal access, which was all up at that first storey level.

We removed all the decking, staircases and gardens and we removed all the boundary fencing around the property as well. They wanted to replace that fencing and we needed to retain a bank that had been planted out in agapanthus, old shrubbery and overgrowth that had taken root over the years.

Project Outline

They wanted to retain the bank so that it was stepped down from, rather than a sloping bank. That way they could plant it out with trees, add fruit trees and some more designer landscape planting in there.

We brought diggers in order to remove all the material from the site to make space for reframing out the whole project, working around a lot of the existing structure so we didn't compromise any of the existing integrity, like the structural integrity of the building.

We had to work around that, leaving that all intact and untouched, and then frame up our deck. The new platform was at least twice the size, we added a timber baton dressed 50 x 50 balustrade around the deck. Pinewood was the material used to make pine decking, pine handrails, pine steps and treads, all treated that matched in nicely.

Preparation

We added two staircases, one going down each side. One staircase accesses the lower unit of the house, and one staircase accesses the yard around the front of the house. We added both of those in with handrails all the way down, and gate access on those at the top of those staircases as well.

Following that, a retained out bank was added. The bank was retained in three separate retaining walls, stepping down, and creating three levels. Following that, we installed drainage, backfilled them, got them level, put topsoil down and got them looking really nice.

We had a lower deck down in front of the ground-level unit, we ripped that existing deck out. We had to suspend the aircon unit and then the deck underneath that and reset the aircon unit on top of our deck.

That deck needed to tie into the retained bank as well, so now, structurally, that bank is a lot more sound and safer. The decking was all rotting out, whereas now they can walk on that without fear of falling through it.

Stairs, decks and retaining walls

The clients are going to set up a spa on top of the deck. We added reinforcing for that. Following that, we added the boundary fence around, which was our Timber smart wall boundary fencing at 1.8m high.

This is a tongue and groove timber laminated panel that slots into a metal C channel post with metal top and bottom rails.

The fence was laid out all the way around with a matching driveway gate at the main driveway and also the lower level access driveway. They both needed swing gate access to allow vehicles to get through.

We had some aluminium gate frames made up, which allowed for our timber laminated panels to be fixed into those gate frames nicely.

This was another massive project which was a huge yard transformation. This made the yard a lot more usable and added a whole lot of outdoor usable space to the property. Not just decking space, but also plantable space.

Over the next few years, as the plant life takes root, it will really add a whole other aspect to that property.

Conclusion

The fence and gate

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.