Outdoor Living | Transformation | Decks
My deck is falling apart, and I don't know what to do with it! Can I replace my deck with a patio?
This question is posed to me quite often. The short answer is: most times. While most decks can simply be removed and a patio installed in its place, we need to step back and examine the project as a whole. A couple of questions that you may want to ask yourself are:
1. Why was a deck installed in the first place?
2. Does it compliment the architecture of the home?
3. If there wasn't a deck there when you bought the house, would you put one on?
4. Do you like the feeling of enclosure that railings give?
All of these questions are relevant when thinking about whether to replace or remove your old deck. There are many times where the removal of an old deck and installation of a beautiful new patio is a great option, but how it is executed will vary from project to project based on site conditions.
Below are some projects illustrating some different applications of the ideas discussed above.
1. Some projects can simply have the deck removed, a set of steps installed down to a patio surface.
BEFORE AFTER
2. While some projects are as elegantly simple as the one illustrated above, other projects call for more depth and scale such as the one shown below.
BEFORE AFTER- (see transformation)
So the final question is, can every deck be replaced with a patio? The answer is 'no'. There are decks that come from a door that happens to be a complete story (or more) above the grade below. In that case, a deck can be incorporated into a patio, but cannot be replaced by a patio (see below).
Additional Relevant Topics