Appreciate the info on the Deckstone, I like how the tiles look and the materials sound so much better than composite deck materials. Never understand the logic of putting material that would rot or go bad into a product for exterior use, like putting wood in the composite wood, and those masonite sidings that had paper in it? It is like waiting for disaster to happen. Tried to figure out if 'regular' exterior tiles weight less than Deckstone, and found this site:http://www2.daltile.com/exteriors.cfm. It lists a lot of choices just not able to get the info of the weight per sq.ft. like Deckstone has listed. John made some excellent points, I would need steel frame for a concrete deck. That would be costly. I am leaning on tiling the deck. So far after talking with two contractors, I basically had to redo the decking to hold the extra weight of the tiles. I am waiting for my handyman to come and confirm the cost and whether he is comfortable to do it or not. I think he is pretty honest to let me know his comfort level. I will let you know how that goes. If you find anything else please let me know.

I believe ours is similar to what you describe. This deck covers the original concrete steps but I built it flush with the house floor. I felt this would be safer for carrying things indoors/outdoors. Ours measures 4 feet wide and we use it for egress from the house onto the patio. It certainly could accommodate a couple chairs. The only observation I have is your height. Leaving the top step exposed might set the decking too close to the ground and cause a moisture problem for the wood. I believe the least costly material for building a deck will be pressure treated wood but cedar will be more lasting and with the relatively small size the cost difference shouldn't be too much. Good luck.

Before you fill in the space consider whether you would like a shaded area near the pool and whether you have an opportunity here to sink supports for a structure. Then find out from a pro what you can do to safely a durably bring it level with the rest of the concrete. If it can be done then draw up a layout of how you want to arrange seating for eating and relaxing or shade. Either your new seating arrangements will cover up the patched over area to such an extent any mismatch is trivial or you‘ll want to think about how to make lemonade out of a lemon and iuse the patched over area as one element of larger decorative design on the concrete that you create. There are a zillion sites on the web for creating designs on concret.

I had a client that owned a farm (mooo!) house that I did some remodeling and an addition for. They threw lavish parties and had a second floor door that lead to a roof area above part of the first floor. Part of the parties too place on that roof, but my client and his guests kept falling off the roof (which did not inhibit them from partying on the roof), but my client came to the conclusion that a deck built in place of the roof was in everybody's best interest, and that was part of my scope of work.