Pergolas North County San Diego
Custom Deck and Pergola
A ground-level composite deck with a freestanding pergola in a deep charcoal finish, built as one composition so the lounge, dining, and shade all line up.
The project
The homeowners had a sunny but unusable corner of the yard: a slab, a view of the hills, and no shade. The brief was a place to sit outside in the afternoon without squinting.
Levi designed the deck and pergola together. The deck platform floats just above grade on a pressure-treated frame with hidden-fastener composite boards, so the surface reads as one clean plane with no visible screws. The pergola is a freestanding post-and-beam frame with a tight lattice of rafters and purlins set to cast dense shade at midday while still letting light through in the morning and evening.
Posts are notched into doubled beams with through-bolts rather than brackets, and every exposed end is eased and sealed. The dark finish was chosen to sit quietly against the stucco walls and let the furniture and planting carry the color.
Gallery
More from this project.
Materials, challenges and highlights
Materials and finishes
- Composite decking with hidden fasteners
- Pressure-treated framing
- Doug fir post-and-beam pergola, solid-stain finish
- Hot-dip galvanized hardware
Highlights
- Deck and pergola designed as one composition
- Hidden fasteners, no visible screw heads
- Rafter spacing tuned for afternoon shade
- Through-bolted joinery, no surface brackets
Challenges and solutions
Keeping the deck low to the ground meant very little room for framing. Levi ran the joists at a tighter spacing than code minimum so the composite feels solid underfoot, and set the pergola posts on the slab so the two structures could be aligned to the inch.
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