The great Monty Don said – “A garden is not a place. It’s a journey” and I couldn’t agree more.
I love having different zones in the garden, so I was thrilled when I got to work with Trex and install Trex Composite Decking in our garden.
Our old garden was no more than a large patio. It had rotting decking that was falling to pieces and a tiny little paved area at the back which only got the sun in the summer.
There was a huge double garage to the right of the garden and a double drive leading up to it. With our garden being north-facing, both the garage and the drive sat in prime position, taking up all the sunshine.
We decided that we wanted to extend our house at the back to provide a larger kitchen diner and this meant that the garage had to come down to make way for it.
There was an odd patio in between the previous downstairs toilet, dining room and garage which never saw daylight and became a bit of a dumping ground.
We knocked down the garage and reclaimed the double drive, building a brick wall around it.
This doubled the size of our garden and we could already see how much light and sun the new space was bathed in.
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A Quick Tour of Our Exciting New Renovation
We ripped up all the old decking and were left with a blank canvas in the garden.
We live on the beach and our house and garden are literally built on top of shingle. We left the garden like this for nearly 8 months and nothing grew back!
Is garden decking a good idea?
When I designed the back of the house, I knew immediately that I wanted decking to run straight from the kitchen.
I love biophilic design and how you can integrate the outdoors into your home, making it feel seamless.
I wanted to be able to open our bifold doors and the garden becomes an extension of our home. Decking is the perfect way to achieve this look.
I also love zoning the garden as we love to entertain.
By having different zones, you can have seating for a morning coffee, a dining space to eat your BBQ food, plenty of plants and grass to provide a pleasing aesthetic to the eye and an area for an outdoor room/ hot tub/ garden kitchen!
I like my garden to be like my house. Lots of nature, texture and plenty of details to make the space interesting and easy on the eye.
I started researching decking and straight away, I knew I wanted Trex Composite Decking.
We have had decking made from wood in the past and it never got through winter unscathed.
Every year we would have to jet wash, scrub and repaint the decking and no matter how hard we worked on it, it would look a little more shabby every year.
What is the best garden decking
After doing some research on what is the best decking for outdoors, it became apparent quite quickly that composite materials are the best for your garden decking.
It combines natural materials like wood and recycled material like plastic to form a solid and extremely durable deck.
Why Trex Composite Decking?
Trex composite decking isn’t any ordinary decking. Trex composite decking is a man-made product made up of wood fibres, plastics and bonding agents and needs far less maintenance than traditional wood decking.
As Trex explains on its website –
- Trex composite decking boards will not rot, warp or splinter
- It won’t need seasonal painting, sealing or staining
- Fade or stain
- Become food for woodworm
- Contribute to deforestation
Trex Composite Decking is a Green Deck
Another reason why I knew I wanted Trex Composite Decking was because of its green credentials.
The decking is made from 95% of reclaimed timber and plastic products and saves up to 800 million pounds of recycled plastic film diverted from landfills in the US alone.
Choosing our Trex Composite Decking Product
We have anthracite grey bi-folds and doors and eventually, we are going to clad the top of our house in a dark grey colour.
I wanted the decking to work seamlessly with the house so I looked at their darker products.
We looked at the Trex Composite Decking Enhance Basics Clam Shell and Enhance Naturals Calm Water and decided to go with the Calm Water.
This shade would look perfect against our house and create a stylish corner to our garden.
How to purchase Trex Composite Decking
You can go to the Trex website and find stockists.
Personally, I prefer to leave this kind of project to the professionals so we went with a TrexPRO installer – SB Decking via Arbordeck. I can’t even begin to imagine how we would have approached installing the decking on our own.
I love a bit of DIY but this was definitely something out of our comfort zone.
How to install composite decking
Sam from SB Decking turned up on an unseasonably wet and cold May day.
We just had the back of our house rendered and our garden was more or less a building site, so it was the perfect canvas for them to start the decking installation.
They had to build a frame first to fit the decking onto as our house is raised by about half a metre from the garden.
Initially, I wanted the decking to be level with the garden, but Sam made me see sense and we went for the Trex composite decking leading straight from the bi-folds so you could step straight out onto it.
Once the frame was in place, they were able to put the Trex Composite Decking on top.
We decided to have it across the full length of the house and up to the dividing wall on the right.
This meant that we maximised the size and space of the decking and it would give us plenty of room to put our garden furniture on.
We had a step put in across the whole length of the decking so you could access the garden at any point.
We have also realised since the decking has been completed, that the step doubles up as fabulous seating for our family and guests. The kids love to sit on the steps and eat their lunch!
The finished result
Now for the fun part, styling the decking!
SB Decking did an amazing job with our decking and you can see immediately why it is best left to the professionals!
The Trex Composite Decking looks sleek, modern and fresh and provides a fantastic backdrop to our house.
I love how the decking runs directly from the house so you can walk straight out into the garden from the kitchen.
This provides a seamless indoor/outdoor feel to both our kitchen and our garden.
We eventually plan to put a pergola leading from our house over the larger part of the decking and an outdoor kitchen along the neighbour’s wall, making it a large eating and dining space.
I will write a garden design blog post over the next week so you can see our plans.
For the first time since we had our bi-folds installed back in October, we have been able to open them fully and start to enjoy part of our garden. Just in time for this week’s heatwave!
I can’t recommend Trex Composite Decking enough. We have been hugely impressed with SB Decking workmanship and the high quality of the decking.
We are looking forward to enjoying it for many years to come!
Mel x
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