Don’t Make These Design Mistakes on Your Pool Deck
Because a pool deck is such a large and fundamentally important part of your backyard, you’ll want to be sure to incorporate the following tips before it’s too late. Sometimes, some of the key features that make a backyard enjoyable are overlooked. It is these subtle yet important ideas that can make all the difference.
1. Provide Plenty of Seating. The two most important things to remember about seating include the following: 1) Make sure you have enough seating if you plan to entertain. 2) Make sure your tables and chairs are easily accessible.
You should first start by planning how many areas of seating you want to incorporate. Will you have a dining area, a lounge area, etc? Concrete seat walls and combination bench and planter boxes also are seating options that add visual interest.
Secondly, make sure the area you plan for a table and chairs has enough room for guests to pull out a chair and still be able to maneuver around the table. A good rule of thumb is to leave a 3’ pathway clear of furniture to allow good traffic flow.
2. Layout Your Water Spigots. Commonly overlooked until after the pool deck is placed, many homeowners wish they would have planned the location of their water spigots better. It’s not easy to change when you realize after your pool deck is in that you can’t reach your plants on the far side of the pool without dragging a hose across the entire area. Think in advance where you plan to have planter boxes or pots. Either plan ahead and lay the pipe for a drip system, or be sure to place your water spigots in various locations around your pool so you’re not dragging a 75’ hose in every direction.
Pool Deck Orientation
3. Don’t Hide from the Sun: Orient the pool as much as possible to take advantage of the angle of the sun. This will often depend on the region of the country you live in. When possible, there should be a deck area at the pool’s northeast or northwest corner to take advantage of afternoon sunlight reflecting off the pool’s surface. Keep in mind that the angle of the sun will vary over the course of the year.
Learn more about pool deck orientation.
4. Too Close/Too Far from the House. Space your pool away from your house according to your biggest need. Do you have children? Do you want to be able to hear them and see them from inside the house? If so, you may want to keep the pool close to the back door to keep an eye on them. Or you may want to locate it away from the back of the house to keep down the noise and water mess.
Do you entertain a lot? If your pool is situated further away from the back of the home, will it be an inconvenience to take food outside? If you like to grill and eat outdoors, it may be more functional to have the pool closer to the back door and the kitchen.
5. Create Functional Walkways. One unique design idea is to create circular walkways. Especially for children, it is a functional design feature to have your traffic patterns go in a circle. This makes traveling from one side of the pool or through an attached garden area much more convenient. Learn more about concrete walkways.
Also, if your pool is set away from the house or is surrounded by grass or other landscaping, make sure your walkways are solid and clean enough so that bare feet coming to or from the pool can get across. Wet feet and traipsing through a grass patch are not a good combination. Provide easy access to and from your pool with debris-free walkways.