The old deck was gray, split and coming apart at the corners, with loose boards you had to step around.
We removed it and built a new pressure-treated frame, then laid 500 sq ft of Cumaru, a dense Brazilian hardwood with a deep red-brown color and tight grain. Along the house we built a custom 22 × 26 ft redwood pergola over the patio doors and roofed it with Suntuf Solar Grey corrugated polycarbonate.
Cumaru is one of the dense tropical hardwoods, in the same class as Ipe and Batu: heavy, hard and naturally resistant to rot and insects. We build hardwood decks in any of them, an Ipe deck, a Cumaru deck or Batu, and the choice usually comes down to color and budget.
Why a polycarbonate roof? The tinted panels block 99.9% of UV and let through only about a third of the light, so the shade underneath feels noticeably cooler. It keeps the rain off, and in a heavy downpour it's far quieter than a metal roof. Because light still comes through, the space under it stays open instead of feeling like a covered porch, and the manufacturer's lifetime limited warranty covers yellowing and loss of light transmission.
Everything, deck and pergola, is finished with Penofin oil, which brings out the color of both woods.
Choosing between Ipe, Cumaru and Batu? Ask us: the choice usually comes down to color and budget.
The finished project
How it was built
Before we started
Planning something like this?
