Pool decking and outdoor living in Richmond Hill

Decking and coping around the pool, outdoor kitchens, fire-pit areas, pergolas and the lighting that makes a Richmond Hill backyard usable after dark.

Plan the deck before the shell goes in

Deck width, grade, drainage, fence line and where the equipment lives are cheap decisions on paper and expensive once concrete is poured. If a pool is going into your Richmond Hill yard next season, this is the conversation to have first.

Water has to leave the deck

Pool decks are permanently wet. Grade moves water away from the pool and the house, and on flat lots that usually means deck drains going somewhere sensible. Skip it and you get standing water, algae and a sheet of ice in January.

Surfaces chosen for bare feet

Some beautiful stone is slippery wet and some is painfully hot in August. That decision gets made with samples in hand, outdoors, not from a photograph.

• Decking in interlock, natural stone or large-format slab
• Coping and edge detailing at the waterline
• Deck drainage so water leaves rather than pools
• Fencing and gates to meet pool enclosure rules
• Outdoor kitchens, fire-pit areas and pergolas
• Low-voltage lighting on steps, walls and planting

Richmond Hill sits on genuinely awkward grades. Half the calls we get here are about a slope nobody can use, water running toward a foundation, or a wall somebody built in a hurry that is now leaning out. Terracing turns all three into usable yard.

Pool areas in detail