Question on deck build sitting on ground

[ning]

I haven't read the entire thread, but have you considered a stairway from the 3rd deck that goes down to the side and behind (as in - if you're looking out the window onto the deck, the stairway would land next to the house to the right, and the stairway would go down on the right side of the house)?

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Reason I mentioned spiral was because the 2nd & 3rd deck almost never used, so mainly safety stairs instead of aesthetics.
We've been here 43 years and I never ever considered resale value. A great big 2 story garage with matching horse stable behind may subtract not add value...who knows.
My (fantastic) wife has good ideas but whatever I decide is fine. I do try factoring in bang for the buck.
In the end you'll figure it all out.

 

[ultrarunner]

Family with spiral mostly use in summer on their 2.5 story exposed home and I use it all the time visiting.

It is low cost and durable and a nice option because they use the upper deck as a sun deck… and the quickest way to garden and pool is the spiral stair case.

 

[Sigarms]

Family with spiral mostly use in summer on their 2.5 story exposed home and I use it all the time visiting.

It is low cost and durable and a nice option because they use the upper deck as a sun deck… and the quickest way to garden and pool is the spiral stair case.

If we wanted coffee in the morning, inevitably we go to kitchen downstairs to make it. What we've found is if we want to go outside in the morning with a cup of coffee or Chi tea (sp? what my wife drinks), we're 5' from the kitchen door out to the deck and it really makes no sense to walk alway back upstairs to that third deck.

I'm assuming in your case the top of the spiral stair case dosen't lead into the guests master bedroom?

 

[Sigarms]

Reason I mentioned spiral was because the 2nd & 3rd deck almost never used, so mainly safety stairs instead of aesthetics.
We've been here 43 years and I never ever considered resale value. A great big 2 story garage with matching horse stable behind may subtract not add value...who knows.
My (fantastic) wife has good ideas but whatever I decide is fine. I do try factoring in bang for the buck.
In the end you'll figure it all out.

Spriral idea isn't thrown out, just not certain if it's the solution. I'm thinking they should finish up the second floor deck by Friday or Monday. By that time, we can walk back out behind the kitchen on the deck and re look at everything per measurements.

We've only been here 20 years or so now. When we first bought the place, no kids at the time and only us. However, we bought it planning on the good chance of kids added my father (who was living by himself since my mom died). Having the house has been a Godsend as mentioned before, but for just 2 people and perhaps without my MIL in the picture, a 3 story house isn't a great idea for just 2 people for the long term future.

My father was in great shape at 86, but after he fractured his back he was kind of forced to move in with us on his side as he realized he couldn't do everything on his own. After looking out for him the last 4 years of his life, it made us realize at least for oursevles, smaller can be better, partiuclarly without stairs.

 

[Sigarms]

I haven't read the entire thread, but have you considered a stairway from the 3rd deck that goes down to the side and behind (as in - if you're looking out the window onto the deck, the stairway would land next to the house to the right, and the stairway would go down on the right side of the house)?

Look at post #54 per this thread.

 

[ultrarunner]

If we wanted coffee in the morning, inevitably we go to kitchen downstairs to make it. What we've found is if we want to go outside in the morning with a cup of coffee or Chi tea (sp? what my wife drinks), we're 5' from the kitchen door out to the deck and it really makes no sense to walk alway back upstairs to that third deck.

I'm assuming in your case the top of the spiral stair case dosen't lead into the guests master bedroom?

Correct... Living Room.

The top level had all the views and the ground floor walk to daylight is the in law for the parents... totally self contained...

Before they would have to go all the way around if they wanted to use the pool and not access through in law quarters...

Daughter in-law lives the spiral case not because she doesn't like the in laws but it is so convenient not going out the front door or through in-law to get to the pool...

 

[EddieWalker]

Only one I have that I took coming back from mowing over the weekend. View attachment 831318

I wasn't very clear. Since the upper deck wasn't used very much, and you don't have a good option for getting stairs up there, my suggestion is to eliminate the upper deck and build a roof instead. I would remove the door. It looks like you have a plywood, T1-11 type siding that would be super affordable and easy to match to the existing house. Once painted, it would look like the door never existed. I'm assuming it's sheetrock on the inside. Another super easy opening to seal up like it never existed.

Keeping things cheap and simple, I would probably just make the roof the width of the upper and lower windows, so the posts line up with the brick columns already there. Seal in the rest of the opening in the wall for the ledger board with the same siding used to seal up the door opening.

Build a shallow pitch roof that fits under the upstairs windows.

Without doing any math, but just sort of guessing the price of materials to build the deck, and the cost of materials to build a porch roof, it's going to be very close.

I'm a huge fan of big, usable decks. Bigger the better!!! I'm not a fan of balconies. To me, they are small decks that are never used that cost too much and always need some sort of attention due to their desire to rot all the time.

 

[2manyrocks]

Sigarms, are your interior stairs straight runs from one level to the next do they have landings making it harder to install a stair lift if it were needed? My wife has some relatives who just bought a stair lift which seems like a much more affordable solution to staying in their home than moving to a different home in their mid 60s.

I'm not so sure a spiral staircase is senior friendly, but haven't any first hand experience with one.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thinking about my earlier post, now I’m wondering if you need anything on that wall, above the wood deck? If you closed up the window and where it’s open for your ledger board, it would look fine and save a bunch of money.

 

[Sigarms]

Sigarms, are your interior stairs straight runs from one level to the next do they have landings making it harder to install a stair lift if it were needed? My wife has some relatives who just bought a stair lift which seems like a much more affordable solution to staying in their home than moving to a different home in their mid 60s.

I'm not so sure a spiral staircase is senior friendly, but haven't any first hand experience with one.

Open stairway to the 3rd floor, 2 corners. 1st floor to basement, 2 corners.

Reality is the house will be to big for just the two of us. We bought it after we got married looking for a place with some land (got more than we wanted lol). As mentioned, the house has served us very well, but come heck or highwater, my wife wants to downsize and get rid of all the clutter when it just becomes us two, and I can't disagree with her. Her mom living an hour south of us will dictate what we do per our timeframe.

As of now I don't see the need for a chair lift for at least another 25 years We have plenty of time to find or build a single level home.

 

[2manyrocks]

Some friends sold their very nice house to downsize this year. One interesting thing is the first floor of their old house could be entered at grade level without steps, but the new house they are building has several steps to entry. IDK?

 

[Sigarms]

Thinking about my earlier post, now I’m wondering if you need anything on that wall, above the wood deck? If you closed up the window and where it’s open for your ledger board, it would look fine and save a bunch of money.

Eddie, the only roadblock to your line of thinking is my wife That said, I will admit, when we are upstairs, at that height on the top floor, that door and those windows along with deck offers you a good vantage point for overlooking the back yard in the winter months (best spot on the 3rd floor to see the back yard, and it happens to be in that one bedroom).

 

[2manyrocks]

Going to add this for the benefit of anyone reading interested in downsizing. The economics of downsizing today might not yield the results that it would have years ago.

For one thing, an older person's house built some years ago will have been built at a much lower building cost than today's construction. It may be in an established and more desirable neighborhood. In some areas, the good building lots and properties were sold off 20 years ago, and the lots today are the ones no one wanted to build on 20 years ago. The property tax bill may be significantly less than an equivalent home built today, especially if the property tax bill is in a state where it was locked in at a lower homestead amount. Buying or building a new home could reset the property tax bill at a much higher amount than the old home.

So in the case of my friends who recently sold their home to downsize, they got a decent price for it, but they couldn't rebuild the same house on the same lot for what they sold it for. The new house is on a much worse lot, and the cost of construction per SF is much, much higher than what they already had. They aren't getting what they had on a proportional cost basis.

They had a yard sale and got rid of a huge amount of accumulated stuff, but they could have just had the yard sale without selling their home.

With the present real estate market being stagnant, it's not like there are all that many desirable homes at reasonable prices to downsize to even if you wanted to in some markets.

The time to make a home livable in a person's declining years is when they are still able to make the modifications or get them done so it doesn't turn into a unmanageable crisis when they are no longer physically able to manage, IMO.

 

[scootr]

I concur. We moved to this ranch 23 yrs ago. It has a single story house with no steps. I added a double door with concrete sloped access from an at grade rear patio that can be accessed by a vehicle if wheelchair access is needed in the future. I have a stay at home care insurance policy, So this is it for us. We could not replace what we have for what we can sell for even though it has tripled in value.

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie, the only roadblock to your line of thinking is my wife That said, I will admit, when we are upstairs, at that height on the top floor, that door and those windows along with deck offers you a good vantage point for overlooking the back yard in the winter months (best spot on the 3rd floor to see the back yard, and it happens to be in that one bedroom).

I understand 100%. I talk to people every week about their homes and what they want to do, and most of the time, I offer suggestions that I see, that they might not of. Most of the time, we talk about it, buy they end up sticking with what they wanted originally. Some times, they go with my ideas, and it's a roller coaster because I opened my mouth and now it's up to me to make it better then they expected. I'm good with whatever they want to do because my main goal is getting them to recommend me to their friends. And get paid, that's important too!!!

I think that you will do fine with any of your options.

 

[scootr]

I understand 100%. I talk to people every week about their homes and what they want to do, and most of the time, I offer suggestions that I see, that they might not of. Most of the time, we talk about it, buy they end up sticking with what they wanted originally. Some times, they go with my ideas, and it's a roller coaster because I opened my mouth and now it's up to me to make it better then they expected. I'm good with whatever they want to do because my main goal is getting them to recommend me to their friends. And get paid, that's important too!!!

I think that you will do fine with any of your options.

I retired from construction. I often get requests to engineer a friend or neighbor's project. The results are pretty much as you describe except I don't want the work unless it can be done from the seat of my tractor.

 

[Sigarms]

I understand 100%. I talk to people every week about their homes and what they want to do, and most of the time, I offer suggestions that I see, that they might not of. Most of the time, we talk about it, buy they end up sticking with what they wanted originally. Some times, they go with my ideas, and it's a roller coaster because I opened my mouth and now it's up to me to make it better then they expected. I'm good with whatever they want to do because my main goal is getting them to recommend me to their friends. And get paid, that's important too!!!

I think that you will do fine with any of your options.

The biggest advantage with that third deck on my end is it does make a pretty good shooting platform day or night directly to the back yard if need be, directly from the bedroom

 

[ultrarunner]

I'm in a neighborhood where no one downsized... Half my immediate neighbors ranged from 95 to 105 and all had 60 or so years in their homes...

Why would I leave... where would I go is what I hear the most often... plus they are all locked in a very low property tax... when I bought in the neighborhood the seller paid 1200 yearly property tax and the day I bought it went to 8800...