Our Backyard Deck Extension: Creating an Outdoor Living Space

Last year we decided to take on the project of extending our backyard deck to expand our outdoor living space. A few years before we had built a lovely deck with a chevron pattern that included flower beds that ran along our stone retaining wall. We loved having the outdoor space, but realized that we needed a little bit more…

We decided to extend/rebuild our backyard deck to run the entire length of the back side of our home and integrate with the stairs that led to the second level of the yard. Rather than continue the chevron pattern of our previous deck, we decided to lift up the existing decking and change the pattern.

area showing grass needing to be repaired

Extending the deck not only allowed us to expand our outdoor living area, but also kept us from having to repair the grass every spring! There were a few challenges in this project, such as building around the curved stone wall (i.e. a few angled edges) and building integrated stairs into the stone wall as well.

I’m also not going to lie to you – building a deck is tough going. Digging the holes for the foundation bricks is no easy feat and ensuring all of the joists are level can be a challenge. The easy part is the top decking!

We also decided to add some raised flower beds/planter boxes on either side of the window well to break up the long wall of beige siding and to add some visual interest. What you can’t see: we extended our irrigation system with drip lines that water the plants here, too so I can just set it and forget it.

wooden planter boxes with plants growing from it

Another important part of our backyard that I can’t neglect mentioning is our wood fired pizza oven (that my husband built himself!) and our outdoor kitchen area. We are very into cooking outdoors and make the most of the warmer seasons. We’ve got a BBQ Grill like most families but also have a pellet smoker/grill, too.

For my husband’s pizza oven, we decided to build a semi-portable outdoor kitchen with quartz counters so that he could assemble the pizzas outdoors on the patio before putting them into the oven. It makes the entire process feel like great social dining and is a ton of fun when we have guests over.