I just saw the other one. Declare it dead. Add your pictures here if they are not already here. You can add them in a comment. Wait for the milky appearance to clear before clicking "Submit.")

Didn't have any time before to look, but now that I do, I'm thinking your pictures need help. Some of them are too dark to see anything. Then, it is hard to get a handle on what's where and grasp the whole, as your pictures are individual, disconnected shots from different points of view. Usually, with the back yard, one needs a full, connected, panoramic sweep from far left to far right -- taken from the back center of the house, and where your house shows in the first and last pictures (so we can see how things in the view related to it.) To create the panorama, you stand in one place and take slightly overlapping pictures while you pan the camera. It doesn't work to substitute a computer generated panorama as it will be a single, small picture in which we can't see any detail. You'll also need a panoramic view from the yard looking toward the house that captures about a 180* view. But be much closer to the house than the picture above ... about 30' ... enough to see a little sky above the roof but not a lot of sky. Be sure the lighting is decent.

Is the "privacy panel" going at the deck or at at the property line?

Are you looking for constructive criticism of the deck?

Everyone will ask, so tell what large town you're near.

Thank you Yardvaark for taking the time to explain what i have done wrong, I see that I have thrown a lot of pictures on my posts that no one could figure out what’s left or right. I willl try what your suggesting and repost. definitely we would like all comments on the deck on all of I it. Sorry but i have been inside the house. As this has been a complete flip, front to back we are now looking at the back yard dines we have to grade it when we take out the old decking system .

. The door and window you see used to be 2 bedrooms and now they are a kitchen and dining room. I though that I was being one of these posters that would post drawings and pictures, but not the case.

Anyway, would love all critiquing, we appreciate opinions.

Its going to be sunny tomorrow so Ill see what i can do whit the proper pictures.

The privacy panel is coming off the deck which will be at the corner of the house

not the property line.

I am in Ontario, just north of the GTA.

Just for fun I clipped out and enlarged what I think you are referring to as the "neighbor's shed with white trim." It might take some study for us to find it in the picture. Hehe!

I believe you are going to regret placing the door so close to the corner in the garage remodel. In my experience, doors too close to the corner are unpleasant to use and sometimes total killers of interior wall space. I don't know your garage, but think in general the door would be better set 30" or more away from the perpendicular wall.

I think the part of the deck I circled in red -- at the flat-sided apex of where the upper steps almost meet the lower steps -- seems a bit funky. I don't think that short side is going to look good sandwiched between two long steps. The layout seems almost as if leaning toward an octagonal theme. If that's the case I'd try to go more in that direction by making each side more similar in length. Or you could keep the theme rectilinear. Also, I don't think you're going to want to come directly off the corner of the house with a diagonal step. It would be better there to attach straight or right angle. I've doodled a couple of examples to illustrate possible directions. (Don't accept my doodles as plans. They are far from perfected. You must work out the bugs of whatever direction you go.) Also, at the base of the steps, don't forget to plan for a landing. It is much nicer to step on a paved slab rather than directly onto lawn. And it improves the lawn maintenance.

Thank you for your doodles! sorry there should have been a dimension on the garage door. The garage door is 12” from the corner of the wall, and the dimension from the corner of the garage to the deck is 5-1/2’

We would like to have a paver walkway from the garage door leading around the deck and going to the gazebo. Also some greenery. Your 3rd design is doable for sure, the 2nd one we feel takes to much space out of the deck that would have the dining table on it.

We also like the 1st drawing squaring it off instead of all the angles, also not so time consuming to build .So lets work with the squared off design.

We thought if there was a built in planter box where the 2 long steps meet, it would take care of that corner. I liked having a step leading down to pavers when you come out the patio door and go straight out to the back yard.

In one of my pictures I showed a view of all the neighbours back yards, no one has a fence or privacy but I see the sun glare took most of the picture, they all have the same shed.

We really need some privacy! Every time we do something outside, the neighbours come over and want to know what we are doing.

BTW, I meant to mention about the gazebo. I doubt that you're going to like that location over the long term as it's a view-blocker from the deck. And it's so close to the deck. It would make more sense at a distance and to the side, as a destination and object of view, presuming it is attractive. Rather than so close to the deck, I'd think it better to incorporate it (a roofed structure) as part of the deck.

"... but then the deck was going to be almost 30’ ..." I didn't mean as an add-on to deck, but incorporated as part of deck so no extra square footage.

Picking the gazebo's looks should be something you do. I could suggest a possible location IF we had the panoramic pictures of back yard. But drawing a gazebo would take too much time.

some ideas:

Thank you but we had to cut the existing tree out due to it being a monster encroaching on the house , we were going for a bigger deck as per our drawings, with some paving around it and some greenery incorporated . We have a big issue with no privacy on the one side of our house

Here are some general concepts. These can get fleshed out when you site the gazebo and do a planting plan.

Thank you Yardvaark, we are going to redo our drawing using the square decking. Im going to book an appointment with the garden place and see what they can recommend for privacy. I really like the smoking bush but its the wrong colour for our house, We will keep the gazebo outside of the yellow lines but we will also be putting in a fire pit out by the small tree on the property line. We will relook at the gazebo being part of the deck.

Thank you Dig Doug’s designs.

With the swamp cedars we have planted on the fence line and the 3 big pine trees on the neighbours side we don’t want to plant any more trees. We wont be putting in a fence for privacy just bushes of some sort, and the ones you have in there make it look really nice. We have to stay away from the left side of the property , we have gone out with the deck as far as we can due to the septic right there.

Pretty cool drawings, the deck looks really great but we cant see much of it,

Here is your deck:

hi there! i thought I would update everyone on the backyard work we ended up doing, since Doug Digs and Yardvaak both put amazing drawing together for us, please have a look at how your talent was used. If you go back up the post you can see the before pictures.

My husband and I spent the summer building this deck, Moving the windows and doors and having a brick mason come in and patch the brick up for us.

The privacy panel by the BBQ is made of bamboo fencing turned sideways, each panel is removable so in the winter we can take one panel out for snow shoveling.

There was a large contrast in the cement mortar from new to old so you added the 2 bamboo panels behind the gazebo to hide the cement. we haven t had time to build the steps or the planter box. Disregard the white bumper pads on the gazebo. one of the before pictures is below. Thanks again for everyone's help!

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