About a 2 years ago my wife and I started talking about building a new deck. We have 5 year old split level home in NE Kansas. The deck on our house was 10'x12', the rails and balusters were untreated, and boards were already warping. The stairs were added on by the builder during the zero hour before closing. Now I'm going to be the first to admit, I did nothing to prevent the deterioration of that deck. I never treated it, stained, or power washed it. I guess I thought that either we wouldn't live here long enough for it to bother me, or I'd live here long enough to want to replace it.
The latter was the case. Fall of 2007 we had a baby boy, our first born. I spent a couple of weeks home with him in December and had some time, if you can believe it, to do some research online about decks. We had decided that we would like to use some form of composite lumber. We didn't want to be staining and treating the wood every year or two. Our current deck it 10' off the ground and the thought of spending a weekend each year on a ladder staining made me nauseous.
We wend to deck supply stores, huge chain home improvement stores, and local lumber yards looking at decking and talking to people. I posted messages on message boards, read blogs, and reviews from my Family Handyman Magazine. We chose Evergrain decking from Tamko.
Redwood was the color of choice. We really liked Cherry, but it was 25% more expensive and to be honest the color was about the same. My research showed that nearly all composite decking will fade, most of it (at least recent formulas) are mold, mildew and stain resistant, and will cost roughly 3 times more than treated wood.
Next came the design phase. Most home improvement websites offer some form of the same deck design program, online, and free. They are surprisingly good. If I can find my original plans, I'll post them. I went through lots of designs: herringbone, angled, but finally decided to go with a simple design to save time and money.
