What to do with my rotten deck?

[Radian]

It's a sad day for us but time's up for our garden deck. How it used to look:

And now:

 

 

The trapezoidal cut out with the rotten planks dumped in it is me just playing with ideas.

 

The deck has been completed in three phases. Phase one was the 'treehouse' built for our lad some 20 yeas ago. It was made using decent timber - mostly Douglass fir and is still solid today.

It's the tall watchtower with a pitch roof in the right hand corner. It used to have a slide coming down from an opening panel upper right. Now it just houses the cushions for the deck furniture.

 

The second phase was extending the base of the treehouse (a 2m square deck) with three more identical 'bays' making a 6m long raised platform. This is the most rotten part.

Finally, about 10 years ago I extended again by another couple of meters to create a hexagonal pad for a metal framed gazebo. All three completed platforms are visible in the topmost photo.

 

 

The question is what to do now?

 

The gazebo and treehouse ends are OK(ish) but the middle bit is totally rotten. I wish I'd used Douglas Fir deck planks - some of which I have here on another deck are 25 years old and are still perfect.

I cut out the trapezoid to demo an idea we had to make it into a flower bed or shallow pond - keeping a walkway along the front to maintain the horizontal deck line.

Another suggestion is to demolish the lot and build a 10m long covered shelter. We only want the functionality of shade for a seating area after all.

Any other ideas?

[joe90]

3 minutes ago, Radian said:

We only want the functionality of shade for a seating area after all.

That’s what you must concentrate on, re invention is good, life,s needs change with time.

[Kelvin]

Do you actually use the deck at that point or is it just a walkway? If not claim the space back for the garden with a path through it maybe. 
 

Why has it rotted? 
 

I’ve just started planning our deck which will span the south elevation of our house. We’ve decided on Thermopine using hidden fixings and the Justifix mounting system from Sihga. 

[Radian]

11 hours ago, joe90 said:

That’s what you must concentrate on, re invention is good, life,s needs change with time.

 

I agree and I'm very open to change, it's just that I've been staring at it for weeks trying to innovate towards something better and exciting but I'm drawing a blank.

 

2 hours ago, Kelvin said:

Do you actually use the deck at that point or is it just a walkway? If not claim the space back for the garden with a path through it maybe. 

 

While it seems like a good suggestion to break it all into two with planting in the middle, I highly value the tidy edge it gives to the lawn, set at right angles to the sleeper retainers on the return.

 

2 hours ago, Kelvin said:

Why has it rotted? 

 

Primarily I think it's because I used cheap softwood decking from B&Q. The Douglass Fir planks in the same location are 10 years older and are still in perfect condition.

Being critical of my own work the airflow beneath the deck where it comes close to ground level at the top of the slope could have been better. I should have dug it out deeper below the joists. And I should have put ventilation holes in the solid plywood panels at the front.

But the Douglas Fir deck under the treehouse is even closer to the ground. The supports for the frame are just 100mm fence posts set in concrete and have mostly fared OK. One did suffer when ants built up a pile of soil behind the front panel: