This Black Forest home was built in the 1970s, and it never had a deck to match the size of the house. Fortune Homes added one: 64 feet across and 16 feet deep, running the full width of the back of the house. It's a big platform, over a thousand square feet, built in Trex composite decking.
The Size of the Job
A deck this long changes how a house reads from the back yard. At 64 feet, it runs the entire width of the home, so every room that backs onto it now has its own stretch of outdoor floor. Sixteen feet of depth is enough for a dining table and a seating area without them crowding each other. On a deck this size, the framing underneath has to be planned in sections, with beams and posts spaced to carry the load evenly across that much span. Older homes built in the 1970s were not built with a deck like this in mind, so tying new framing into the existing structure takes more thought than a small platform off a back door.
Why Trex
Trex is composite decking, made from a blend of wood fiber and recycled plastic. It looks like wood from a distance but does not behave like it. It won't rot, splinter, or need to be sanded and re-stained every couple of years the way a pine or cedar deck does. Homeowners choose it over natural wood mainly for that reason: the upkeep is washing it off with a hose, not stripping and refinishing it every season. It costs more per square foot than pressure-treated lumber, but on a deck this size, the maintenance savings add up fast over the years. Composite boards also hold their color better in direct sun, which matters here since a deck spanning the full back of the house gets exposed all day depending on which way it faces.
Colorado's climate is hard on any exterior surface. Sun at this altitude is intense, and the swing between summer heat and winter cold puts stress on materials that expand and contract. Composite decking is built to handle that cycling better than solid wood, which is part of why it has become the standard choice for decks in this part of the state.
What's There Now
The back of the house now has a single continuous deck running its full width, built to hold up under Colorado sun and Colorado winters without the yearly refinishing a wood deck would need. It gives the house a full outdoor room where there used to be none.
