Decking Ideas

The decision to add decking to your home can be an exciting one, after all there are few changes you can make to your home that will alter its use and appearance to quite the same degree as a garden deck.

While the prospect of sitting outside on your nice new deck might make you want to rush for the saw and nails, its best to take a step back and look at what you want your new decking to do for you, and how it may compliment, or detract from, your homes style and feel.

So the first thing to do once you have made the decision to build decking in your garden is to sit down with a piece of paper and write down what you want the decking to do for you, and also write down any negatives too. You may wonder what can the negatives possibly be, well obviously the size of your garden is reduced, also if done badly the deck may actually reduce the value of your home by either being of poor quality, or by utilizing the wrong style in relation to the style of your home, and therefore looking out of place.

Not all materials are alike, and that also goes for the wood you choose to use for your decking. Getting this decision wrong can seriously reduce the success of your decking, and once its up, you're probably not going to feel like changing it.

Many woods look great and are perfect for building great looking decking platforms, and choosing the right wood for your decking can really bring out the best in your home and your deck, below are some woods you may wish to consider for your deck.

Red Cedar is fantastic for decking, its slight reddish brown color provides a great looking balance of elegance and contemporary style. This wood develops into a slight gray color over the years and generally gets better looking as time goes on. The wood is great for all weather types, easy to work with and reasonably priced.

Hardwearing and delightful looking, Redwood is a popular choice for many peoples garden decking. Strong but easy to work with, and with a pleasant aging to a darker grayer shade over time. Constant exposure to moisture may make the wood turn considerably darker so good sealer is needed if your deck is likely to be open to rain or a damp atmosphere for long periods.

Extremely dark in color, Mahogany is great for a really plush, rich look, and against the right kind of home can really add style and a sense of grandeur to the property. As a hardwood Mahogany is highly resistant to rot and also pests of all kinds. Over time Mahogany ages with a silver color and like the other woods mentioned here can look really good after a couple of years. Ensure your Mahogany has an FSC stamp to be certain that it has been gathered responsibly without damage to rain forests and other sensitive areas.

Adding decking to your home at its most basic level is easy, a fairly competent do-it-yourself enthusiast will have no trouble building a deck that will for sure be solid and up to the job, what might be missed however is the style and design of the decking with a view to matching it to your home.

Clearly a modern home with straight lines and simplistic architecture is not going to be a good candidate for a hugely elaborate Victorian style deck, and obviously the reverse applies, so some time and effort needs to be put into designing your deck before you get to work.

Consider the style of your home and then design a deck to match, you don't need to have an architect's eye and skill to be able to draw the design, simply draw it the best you can, then refine your design down until it looks good, suits your needs in terms of size and structure, and crucially complements the style of your home.

Getting the style right will make your decking a real pleasure to live with, great to use and easy to maintain, not to mention a well styled deck with good proportions can add thousands of dollars to the resale value of your home, so getting the style right before you begin is a must.

No warning is needed as to the consequence of your homes value if you get the decking style and design wrong, at best there will be no increase in value at all, and at worst you may even reduce the value of your home, this commonly happens when too much of the garden is used up with the decking area, so keep it proportionate to your home and garden size.