Multi-Level Decks in Woodlawn, OH

Woodlawn (ZIP 45215) households who want something living on the deck, and not only planted around it, can have a small fish pond set into the lower level. On a two-level deck, a pond has an advantage it never has out in the lawn: people look down into it from above.

A second level gives a deck a balcony. From the upper platform, the lower one is laid out below you like a courtyard seen from a window. Whatever sits on the lower floor becomes the view. A pond is one of the best things to put there, because water changes with every angle you see it from.

Seen from a low chair, a pond surface shows the sky and hides what is under it. Seen from the edge of a platform a few feet up, the view goes down into the water instead of across it, and the fish, stones and plants show clearly. So the pond goes into the lower level just beyond the step, where the upper edge looks straight down. It is a lined pond sitting on the ground in a framed opening, dug about three feet deep at the center with a shelf around the edge for plants.

The deck boards overhang the opening by an inch or two to hide the liner and the stone edge, and the frame stays clear of the water. A pump and filter sit in a box under a lift-out section of the lower level, running from a weatherproof outlet an electrician fits. A small de-icer keeps an opening in the ice through winter so gases can escape. A low bench on the upper edge above the pond becomes the best seat on the deck. We come back each spring to clean the filter and start the pump.