Decking help

chickaroonee

Hope someone can advise.

We're due to put our house on the market shortly, and are trying to decide what to do with the back garden. Basically, there used to be decking as you walked out of the back door (don’t have measurements with me, but was a large rectangle the whole width of the house). We had to remove this as it had been very badly fitted, was rotten and bolted to the house, causing a ventilation problem.

However, we now have a rectangle shaped dent in our garden, if that makes sense, with patio around it. We think we’ll have to put in new decking as cannot think what else to fill this gap with, and the step down from the house is too big otherwise. Can anyone advise the cheapest way (and a rough idea of costs) to do this decking, don’t want it to be too fancy obviously as we’re moving, but enough to tidy it up. DH is up for fitting it himself but has never fitted decking himself, so if it is very tricky to do then maybe we will have to rethink. BUT paying £2k or whatever to have someone fit it is just not an option.

If anyone has any tips/rough price guide etc these would be appreciated, and/or any other ideas on what to do with this big space that won’t cost an arm and a leg! Our house is the lower end of the market so I don’t think a buyer will be expecting top of the range decked oasis, but equally we don’t want to do a botched job.

ohyeahitssorcy

Might be a good idea to post the dimensions of the area you wish to deck if you search google for decking projects there is an absolute wealth of knowledge couple of bits and peices i found ....

http://www.gardenadvice.co.uk/guides/decking.pdf

http://www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk/diy/decking/decking_project.htm

http://www.applegategardens.co.uk/acatalog/laying_garden_decking.html

Hope that helps a bit

chickaroonee

Dimensions are width - 20.5 ft and length - 8ft

27col

I recently built a deck about that size with my son. The materials came to about £700 from Wickes, including hand rails. It took us about 3 days.

wallbash

£2000 or £700 and a lot of work , in a ( your words ) house is the lower end of the market.

Build some cheap steps , dig over patch .... its a flowerbed!

keystone

Agree with wallbash. Just tidy it up at minimal outlay to yourselves and let the purchaser decide what they want to do with it. They might just HATE the idea of a deck and be put of buying.

Cheers

Swipe

Decking will soon be out of fashion like laminate flooring

chickaroonee

I know what you're saying and am definitely not against the idea of steps (it'll save us money after all!) but we're just struggling to picture it a bit. When I say our house is lower end of the market, I’m probably being a bit harsh I more meant it’s a FTB house not a plush 4 bedroom detached.

In terms of what it looks like, basically the old decking had patio slabs on one side, leading to a patio at the end, then a lawn. There were steps down from the decking to the patio, as it is higher than the rest of the garden. Now the decking has been removed it looks like a massive hole across the garden and really odd with the patio at the end and side. I’m sorry this is really hard to describe without a photo!

I think it would look very odd as a giant flowerbed and don’t think we could get patio slabs to match the rest of the patio either. However, I’m really not greenfingered and if anyone can suggest a better alternative than decking and how to do it in our garden, I’d be really grateful as it would save us a lot of money and effort that can be put into other things!

wallbash

FTB , out all day working , or young couple , with little kid , moving from flat which is too small ??

Requires very easy maintained garden , out all day OR space for little monster to play.

I sound like an Estate Agent :rotfl: Thats your market.

Smooth out area between patio and hole , dig over , scatter a few bags of top soil around .
Buy a BIG bag of grass seed . ( too early to sow)
Tell potential buyers , thinking of a nice lawn.

chickaroonee

Yep you're definitely right about the easily maintained garden! But if it is grass straight outside the back door, it would be grass then patio then grass again..I think that might look a bit odd?

What about moving the patio slabs back to the house, then turfing the gap where the patio was i.e. patio then one big grass bit? Do you think that would work?

wallbash

A photo would be nice .

Would it work , yes, its wether the amount of hard labour is justified.

it would be grass then patio then grass again..I think that might look a bit odd?

Pinch a bit of patio ( slabs?) relay them from steps to main area of patio.
That would 'tie' the steps to the patio , using the same slabs as orig , would be better than different slabs which would stand out.

Pinch a bit

Lifting a few slabs , create a new flower bed ??