Backyard Reclamation

New Deck Build Cumming, GA

There was an enclosed sunroom upstairs and a concrete slab underneath it, and neither one gave the homeowners a real reason to go outside. So we took the sunroom's walls down and built a two-level composite deck in the space that opened up.

Before

A Room and a Slab, Not Talking to Each Other

Upstairs, off the back of the house, was a small sunroom with windows on two sides, technically a room, but not one anybody spent much time in.

Below it, at ground level, was just a concrete pad and a couple of plastic chairs somebody had carried out there years earlier and never bothered moving.

Two stories of house, and the whole backyard came down to a slab nobody used and a room that didn’t count as outside or in.

After

Building Around What Was Already There

Rather than add a deck next to the sunroom and leave the room alone, we took the walls off it. That let the upper deck take over the sunroom’s old footprint and open it up on every side instead of two.

Once that was settled, the lower level followed on its own. With the upper deck acting as a roof over it, the space below stays shaded most of the day, so we framed it out on posts and built it as the part of the project that actually gets lived on.

The Two Areas

The Upper Level

Off the back of the house, open now on every side, where the sunroom used to close it in.

The Lower Level

Framed on posts beneath the upper deck and shaded by it most of the day. This is the half that gets used the most.

The Details

The Railing

Trex Signature aluminum runs the full width of both stories, with composite sleeves wrapping every post so nothing underneath shows through as raw wood or bare metal. A railing that long has nowhere to hide a bad seam, so it had to be right the first time.

No More Painting

The old sunroom needed its trim and siding kept up like any enclosed room does. Composite decking and aluminum railing take that off the list, so what used to be upkeep is now just a deck people sit on.

What Went Into It

Component	Product
Decking	Trex Transcend composite, 345 sq. ft. across two levels
Railing	Trex Signature aluminum with Trex composite post sleeves
Structural remodel	Removed walls from the enclosed upper-level room to open it into the new deck

Built in 2020 for $56,000. The same project would run closer to $78,000 today, mostly material and labor catching up rather than anything about the design.

Sometimes You Already Own the Room You're Missing

This house didn’t need square footage added on. It needed the room it already had opened up so people would actually use it. If there’s a sunroom or enclosed porch on your house that’s never quite worked, tell us what you want out of it and we’ll give you a straight answer on whether taking the walls off gets you there.

or visit us at Woodstock Design Center 135 Village Center W, Suite 100