- Garden & Outdoor
- Terrace & Balcony
Black Terrace and Balcony Ideas and Designs

Nightshot of this beautiful rooftop in Chicago's Bucktown area. Water, fire and friends is all this rooftop needs to complete one of the cities nicest and private rooftop. Photos by: Tyrone Mitchell Photography

A short stroll through live oaks leads to a small pier employing salvaged steel structural elements.
Photo: Rob Karosis, Robert Cain,

Tony Soluri Photography

Designed using Trex Transcend decking in Lava Rock – a rich reddish-black shade with subtle shading and natural shade variations creating distinctive hardwood-like streaking and intense tropical hues and Trex Transcend decking in Tiki Torch – a warm, earthy shade features rich, reddish-brown hardwood streaking, and is designed to off the look of real tropical hardwoods with slight variations of color and streaking.
Additional Trex products featured include Trex Elevations, Trex Reveal railing, Trex Pergola, Trex Outdoor Furniture and Trex Outdoor Lighting – stair riser lights, post cap lights and recessed lights.
Garden plan - pjeire04

Our clients came to us looking for a complete renovation of the rear facade of their Atlanta home and attached deck. Their wish list included a contemporary, functional design that would create spaces for various uses, both for small family gatherings and entertaining larger parties. The result is a stunning, custom outdoor living area with a wealth of options for relaxing and socializing. The upper deck is the central dining and entertaining area and includes a custom cantilevered aluminum pergola, a covered grill and prep area, and gorgeous concrete fire table and floating wooden bench. As you step down to the lower deck you are welcomed by the peaceful sound of cascading water from the custom concrete water feature creating a Zen atmosphere for the entire deck. This feature is a gorgeous focal point from inside the house as well. To define the different outdoor rooms and also provide passive seating opportunities, the steps have built-in recessed lighting so that the space is well-defined in the evening as well as the daytime. The landscaping is modern and low-maintenance and is composed of tight, linear plantings that feature complimentary hues of green and provides privacy from neighboring properties.

Outdoor patio with gas fireplace that lives right off the kitchen. Perfect for hosting or being outside privately, as it's secluded from neighbors. Wood floors, cement walls with a cover.

Joe Fletcher
Atop a ridge in the Santa Lucia mountains of Carmel, California, an oak tree stands elevated above the fog and wrapped at its base in this ranch retreat. The weekend home’s design grew around the 100-year-old Valley Oak to form a horseshoe-shaped house that gathers ridgeline views of Oak, Madrone, and Redwood groves at its exterior and nestles around the tree at its center. The home’s orientation offers both the shade of the oak canopy in the courtyard and the sun flowing into the great room at the house’s rear façades.
This modern take on a traditional ranch home offers contemporary materials and landscaping to a classic typology. From the main entry in the courtyard, one enters the home’s great room and immediately experiences the dramatic westward views across the 70 foot pool at the house’s rear. In this expansive public area, programmatic needs flow and connect - from the kitchen, whose windows face the courtyard, to the dining room, whose doors slide seamlessly into walls to create an outdoor dining pavilion. The primary circulation axes flank the internal courtyard, anchoring the house to its site and heightening the sense of scale by extending views outward at each of the corridor’s ends. Guest suites, complete with private kitchen and living room, and the garage are housed in auxiliary wings connected to the main house by covered walkways.
Building materials including pre-weathered corrugated steel cladding, buff limestone walls, and large aluminum apertures, and the interior palette of cedar-clad ceilings, oil-rubbed steel, and exposed concrete floors soften the modern aesthetics into a refined but rugged ranch home.



