We aim to provide some interesting hints and tips to assist you in ending up with useful and beautiful deck to enhance your home and garden.

Some ideas great decking ideas include creating it directly outside your home or in your garden which has so many advantages – it creates additional living space and the illusion of value which far exceeds what it costs to install.

 

Great garden deck ideas and designs need not be costly – for a few hundred pounds for a simple deck, any prospective house buyer will see a neat and tidy space – the alternative view if you do nothing may be an untidy, hard to maintain and wasteful garden – this will turn-off any buyer.

 

A deck design does not need to be difficult or overly expensive to install.  It is quite easy to lay down on a DIY basis or there are many experienced tradespeople that can do an excellent, professional job.

There are many styles of decking available – from traditional country cottage looks right through to an ultra-modern chic style suitable for a architect designed bespoke property.

More and more people are using some contemporary ideas for decks to modernise their properties – they are some amazing designs available from some very well know architectural landscapers.

We’ve recently seen some truly inspiring contemporary ideas in a recent new-build development – photos coming soon!

Please also contact us if you’ve any photos of your own deck – if they’re suitable, we’d love to show them here.

We hope to include a large number of resources to help you to discover clever ideas: from materials (such as decking screws) through to discovering new technologies like Composite Decking.

There is a common question to be asked of whether to go for a solid hardwood deck or compromise (in terms of cost) for softwood timber deck.  Hardwood certainly looks beautiful but it costs.

For more cost effective but still quality ideas check out our cheap decking page for some tips on building budget garden deck that still delivers.

Building Control Regulations and Planning Permission

Please remember when thinking about building a deck in the UK to consider both planning permission and building regs.

The planning permission has mostly to do with the area your deck is going to take up of your garden and also if it will affect the amenity value of your neighbor’s property – i.e is it going to overlook and wreck their privacy.

Building control regulations relate more to keeping you safe – if your decking is raised (and it doesn’t need to be that high for this to take effect), you’ll need barriers to prevent falls and to be certain that the deck is structurally sound.

Check out both – you do not want to build a deck and then have to take it back down or try to sell your house and the buyers requesting building control sign off documentation that you haven’t got!

The Timber Decking Association has a good guide on this here.

As a warning here, a Guernsey Hotel has just had to spend an extra £5000 to make alterations to decking that was just a few inches too high!

See the report here.

New to the site

We’ve added some information on decking lights - this is really worth doing as it adds a great feature and talking point to your decking and the cost compared to the effect created is minimal – it also draws the house and the garden together.

They add a polish and a finish to a deck and are definitely required in the United Kingdom with it’s dark and long winter nights – they extend the usefulness by hours into the evening.

Thanks for looking!