Thank you for the compliment. The porch also provides a place to mount external speakers and the railing serves as somewhere to rest items while opening the door. Noone ever has condern about footing on the large steps which are illuminated after dark. Don't know if you saw the informational comments following several of the photos, but we designed and built the patio ourselves. It took DH and our son most of a summer working primarily weekends. Prior to building the patio, footings for the egress porch and pergola were set ready for construction in later seasons. We engaged a local landscaper to design the flanking gardens plus specify plants suited for the exposure and native soil. This was a worthwhile investment. Very few plant failures have happened. I mention this as our home was also new and it took several years before everything in the photos was constructed. Small plants experience less transplant shock allowing them to mature more quickly so in a few seasons are actually fuller than beginning with larger ones. DH signs on here too and will be able to answer more technical questions about the build should you have any.

I bought the ACQ and the "TufCote" screws from one of the largest and most reputable lumber mills in town. I asked THEM which screws to use with my wood decking -- then the second time with the Trex as well. I wanted to do it right. They had thought the cause of the ACQ decking cupping and snapping screws was a due laying down very wet decking during a very hot period with full southern exposure. They felt the combination just baked the wood and offered me a slight discount on the Trex. I even had a rep from Simpson some out to look at my deck and they offered me more coated trimheads! So now I have a resurfaced Trex decking with screws ready to fail again? How bad do you think it would mess up the decking to unscrew the coated trim heads and replace them with a stainless steel at this point? Not sure if it would chew up the Trex. Do you think I need to replace every screw or maybe just 1 per joist? I may be about to unscrew them, replace with SS and pound the material in place... ah, what a nightmare! At least I didn't use TrapEase scews which you can't back out. Looks like I need to have a meeting with the lumber mill.

Consumer Reports: For certain items, their advice is good (things like digital cameras, cordless phones, some appliances, etc.). The advice seems unbiased and reliability data is gathered from consumers. But for things like cars, I believe the editors have a strong bias against US manufacturers and the "scores" in their ratings include subjective categories like how the car feels and its styling---things that don't mean a hill of beans. Somehow, someway, an imported car (typically Japanese) will always "perform" the best in their tests, even if objective data like 1/4 mile times and braking distance is better on the domestic. The overall score ends up lagging if the GM product is "long in the tooth" or has "shiney plastic on the interior trim" or other nonsense. Honda somehow does everything perfectly as far as CR is concerned. It cracks me up to read their ratings of wine and ice cream---things that they have no business rating since it's all a matter of personal taste. Then for something like a mattress---part of it is comfort but part is price and how well it's made---they seem to have no opinion at all. Decking? Well, I think they pretty much admit that they don't know it all. I evaluated a bunch of them for a deck and screened porch I'm having built. For a variety of reasons, I wanted composite on the deck portion instead of wood (wood in the porch). In the end, I settled on Fiberon Professional Series with the slots to accommodate hidden fasteners. The contractor I hired seems most comfortable with this particular material as he has specified it many times before and seems to have satisfied customers. I liked the darker brown color enough to go with it. I tested it against the Fiberon "Tropics" which looks nicer to me, but I didn't like how easliy "Tropics" scratched. Pro Series took harder keying before showing gauges. Also, he gave me a better price on Pro Series. One material I liked is Pro Cell which I guess now is called Azek Deck. It's lighter weight and I think all plastic with no wood fill. The colors were a little light in shade---like pastel---but the material was nice looking, like painted wood. Evergrain was nice, but not reversible. I heard good things about Geo Deck, but didn't like the look as much as the Fiberon, and it didn't feel as substantial. I might regret not picking the Azek Deck because over the long haul, it probably ages better than the Fiberon, but I do think the Fiberon is a good product in its own right. "Veranda" is made by Fiberon and appears to be the same product but with the HD label on it. Fiberon is 2nd to Trex in Sales, but has not had nearly as many issues reported as Trex has.

My composite deck had small spots of mold the first few years but it was due to the constant overspray of the sprinkler system and was in an area where no direct sunlight hit it. I treated it a couple of time with bleach and I haven't noticed it lately. Maybe time and deck use took care of it? Treating a little mold every now and then is much easier than resealing/staining wood ever 1-2 years. I've owned a wood deck in the past and would never go back. There are many good composites available......just have to do your research and look at decking companies, not the big box stores.