Multi-Level Decks in Montgomery, OH

Montgomery (ZIP 45242) houses have family rooms and kitchens with generous windows onto the back. For much of the year, the deck is something people look at from inside. A two-level deck can be arranged so that looking out means looking over the deck to the yard.

A deck is seen from two places: from on it and from indoors. Most designs only think about the first. A two-level deck can satisfy both, because the height of each level can be chosen for how it looks through the glass as well as how it feels underfoot.

A deck at door height sits right in the window view. From a chair in the family room, your eye meets the deck floor, then the table, the chairs, the grill cover and the umbrella, and only after all of that the lawn. Drop the outer level, and that changes. Your line of sight runs out through the window at about sill height. A lower level set far enough below that line lets your eye pass over its furniture to the lawn and trees beyond.

The upper level stays small at the door, just a landing with room to step out, and the furniture moves down out of sight. We work out the drop from inside the room. We measure the sill height and the indoor floor, sit where the household sits, and draw the sight line out to the yard. The lower level goes far enough below it that a table and a seated person stay under the line. That is often a step or two more than the slope of the yard alone would give, and the view from the kitchen stays tidy in February.