LITTLETON — Coloradans love their outdoor living spaces. This summer, a DIY Network show called “Mega Decks” is broadcasting this love to the whole nation.
“We’re an outdoor state. That’s our true passion,” says Andy Hashman, a designer with Mosaic Outdoor Living & Landscapes’ Louisville showroom.
The company, formerly Colorado Custom Decks, designed and built all eight decks featured on “Mega Decks,” a new show produced by Littleton-based Orion Entertainment.
A magazine feature about Mosaic’s over-the-top deck designs attracted the eye of Chris Dorsey, CEO and founder of Orion.
The production house’s construction-related show portfolio includes “The TreeHouse Guys” (with a casting call currently open for aspiring Colorado treehouse builders) and “Building Alaska” on DIY, and “New House, New Life” and “Living Big Sky” on HGTV.
Hashman’s job is to build spaces that embrace the good elements of living outdoors while shielding you from the bad ones — and there are plenty of bad ones in a state that gets every kind of weather except hurricanes.
“It’s all about controlling the wind and the weather enough” through locating the deck properly and using windbreaks and overhead structures, he said.
Once that’s done, the sky’s the limit to what you can do on your deck: bake a pizza, watch TV, toast a marshmallow, look at the stars or enjoy the rolling thunder of a custom-made two-story waterfall.
In its inaugural eight episodes, “Mega Decks” showcases patios and pergolas from Estes Park to Colorado Springs. Featured projects include a four-season deck in Monument built to accommodate a big family’s many gatherings, and a two-story deck for a log home perched on a cliffside near Rocky Mountain National Park.
A couple in the Broadmoor neighborhood of Colorado Springs replaced their tiny, deteriorating deck with a “treehouse” outdoor space, a four-season room with retractable glass walls, its hillside perch surrounded by greenery.
In the game of lavish outdoor spaces, fire features, outdoor grilling areas, pergolas and hot tubs are table stakes. What makes these decks special are unique touches to match the homes’ surroundings and homeowners’ lifestyles — including that outdoor pizza oven or the two-story water feature.
One deck project, in a gated community in Littleton, rewarded its homeowners with an updated hot tub, ample grilling space, room to relax before the fire — and an easier path to the outdoors for their elderly dog.
While the 4,500-square-foot Littleton home was beautiful inside and out and surrounded by a park-like landscape, its deck could go nowhere but up, Hashman said.
The homeowners are both busy professionals who longed to spend their precious leisure time outdoors but couldn’t get comfortable on their existing, west-facing deck. It was exposed to the wind and direct afternoon sun, “either too cold or blazing hot,” Hashman said.
Worse still, the undersized deck’s focal point was an aging hot tub surrounded by ugly stucco privacy walls that cut off the view. Its composite decking was uneven and “squishy” and, as it turned out, the whole structure was unsafe — during demolition, workers found rot throughout the support posts and beams.
Finally, the homeowners’ elderly and vision-impaired dog struggled to manage the steps to and from the yard, doing an unscripted faceplant on the stairs for the camera.
Hashman designed a 1,900-square-foot, $200,000 wraparound deck whose radius curves echo the shape of the house. Among its features are an expansive outdoor kitchen with grill and smoker under a hipped roof and a cozy living room beneath a pergola, facing both a curved fire feature and the mountains.
Moved from center stage to one end of the deck, the hot tub’s motorized cover rises to become a gazebo. Its mesh sides provide shelter without sacrificing the view from either tub or house.
The deteriorating wood frame and composite decking was replaced with steel framing and a higher-quality composite surface. “Twenty years from now,” Hashman says, “We want it to look the same as it does today, with no maintenance.”
The three-month process was documented by video crews who captured the challenges of building an outdoor structure through spring rain and fall snow.
The new outdoor space doesn’t even put the dog’s nose out of joint.
Now, a custom-designed metal staircase features longer, shallower treads that Melvin, a Jack Russell terrier, can easily navigate.
Watch it
“Mega Decks” episodes are airing on the DIY cable network (check diynetwork.com/shows/mega-decks for times). They can also be purchased on iTunes or Amazon Instant Video.
