Are you keeping the posts natural? I would stain the deck in a grey, solid stain to match the trim on your house. I think adding another color will make your house have a crazy quilt effect with all the textures and elements happening all ready.

Very cute house and I would love to sit out on the porch with a good book and a glass of lemonade.

We are keeping the cedar natural and just polyurethaning it and we have a tongue and grove ceiling that we are keeping natural too, Could we use a grayish color on the sides and a brown on top of the deck?

Thank you for the compliment ive never had a porch before and we spend a lot of time on it.

Yes, putting the grey on the sides would help visually. But I would still do the whole deck grey. You can stain the deck brown, live with it and see if you like it. The good thing about wood is that it is easily changed.

I really like the cedar on the ceiling. This is my concern. Red house, grey trim, yellow posts, white door and brown deck. You will have too many elements going on. In design it works best if a combo of three is used. The goal with an addition, deck, porch or room, is have it look like it was original to the house and not an after thought.

It looks like from your photos that your trim paint is in good condition. It is a good color with your brick. Then you added the cedar which brings in the yellow. So to unify your design you need to bring in a color from your existing house. Which is red or grey.

I hope I did not give you too much to think about. Post a picture when you are done.

Color choices have been a problem for us from the start. You should check out some of my other posts like when we went to choose siding color and stone to go with our brick...it was especially hard to chose a stone that would go well. One of the people suggested covering up the brick with Hardi and we may do that in the future as our budget allows. We are doing away with the white doors on the front and back of the house, and would like to know what color choices to paint those too. I'm thinking gray or black but am unsure.

Before I posted our porch on Houzz, I was considering a reddish brown stain since we have reds and browns in the brick, or a cedar color stain to match our cedar ceiling, or an olive stain to match our Portrbello colored French door(which is a close color to our gray trim). I like the solid gray idea too, but am hoping to do the porch first in a transparent or semi transparent stain as my husband wants a natural look and to be able to see the grain. Like you said, I could toy around with other colors and if I do a transparent now, I can do solid color later. What do you think? I'm lreally liking the idea of the solid gray, but haven't convinced my husband yet.

Here are 4 colors we painted boards for consideration.

I'd stain or paint posts of porch to match trim as well as the deck.

as hashes been stated, you have too many colors.

that is just fine if that is what you want, but to most people it will not be aesthetically pleasing.

btw, I would think long and hard before covering brick with hardi or any type of siding. I think your brick, trim, and siding look great together. I realize that may not be exactly what you may want.

Yes, I understand about keeping the wood natural. So my choice would be the stain on the board on the right because it is closes to the cedar posts in color. As you said you can always change it later.

I agree colors are so hard and can be intimidating.

@Kelley. It tickled me what you wrote about leaving the front the same because I had a few comments on houzz that didn't like the looks of my computer rendition with the stone added, so you made my day. That makes you invited along with Jean to sit on the back porch, but only after the stain or paint has dried a few days.

I've updated my photo, please let me know which ones of these will work.

I tried to number them to make it easier, but the photo editor couldn't save my changes. I painted one board which is the color of our trim and may paint it later on that color, but let me know which stain you think would look good.

That's a porch, now it is time to start planning a deck a few steps down that carries to the left across the new addition and provides some real outdoor space in which to relax and entertain. Maybe give it a curved outside edge that adds some spirit to your view, a touch of nature. You can start growing your vegetable and herb garden in planters to add to your deck when it is completed. Yum, yum!

Enjoy!

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You have good timing as we ar trying to figure out how to landscape the retaining walls to basement(two tier straight on both sides is all I can come up with) and my husband has wanted the deck bigger from the beginning. If you have any pics that would work would be great!

The gardens related to retaining walls are often more successful in softening the harsh look of the wall, if you can break the wall into steps with a plant bed between steps.

One caution is to be sure to provide a bed of gravel at the base and up the back of the wall to keep the wall dry and not subject to winter freezing and thawing, and wrap the gravel with a filter cloth to keep the soil from infiltration.

Take your roof drainage and run it into the gravel bed behind the wall, which will have a perforated pipe at the base of each wall to carry the free water off to an area of the site that is lower, or into a drainage basin that you have constructed on your property with gravel at its base and native plants at its surface, called a rain garden.

Most jurisdictions require you to contain all the water that falls on your site, to protect the quality of local streams and native animal habitats.

If you will be planting a deck over the Basement Walkout:

a. plant shade-loving plants close to the basement walls.

b. consider the location of the deck before considering the location of the basement steps.

c. build the basement steps as outdoor steps with low risers and deep treads (2 risers + 1 tread = 26-27"), plus a handrail, of course. A consider what you will be bringing to the basement in the future, so you make the stair wide enough to bring down a couch, a washing machine, a refrigerator, etc.

cascio.offsite@gmail.com

Wonderful advice! We have done all the things you mentioned in your 2nd paragraph and I even chastised my husband because I thought it was overkill at the time, but seeing that we now have a dry basement since then, I've had ample portions of "crow".

We are currently trying to decide whether to make the area going into the basement shale, grass or some sort of flat stone.

Grass won't survive an overhead deck, and gravel means you always need to wear shoes down there, so, as long as there is drainage beneath, I would say that the space could be used for multiple purposes, over the years, if provided with a smooth paved surface from the outset.

That is my vote.

cascio.offsite@gmail.com

I've got the deck stained in Timberline (brownish color). Have a few boards needing a 2nd coat and the steps stained as well, but other than that I am finished. I also painted our white storm door the color of our French doors so there would not be as many colors going on.

Let me know what you think and if I need to adjust anything.

I have appreciated everyone's advice.

Doesn't that look nice. The storm door looks so much better now that it is painted. Have a glass of lemonade on me and relax on your new porch.

Thank you Jean, will give you a toast as well. . Painting the door was a huge help and I may be darkening the posts in the near future as the finish has yellowed in the sun a bit.

CWF.

Looks fantastic.