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Vitex deck, synthetic lawn & reused Kwila — Takapuna
A Takapuna house, just fully renovated, with a new louvre roof the old garden no longer fitted. Now 60 m² of premium Vitex: a square main deck, a path along the house and a second deck at the end, with 15 m² of synthetic lawn in the middle, and the old Kwila reused on the fence and planter.
What was there before
The house had just been fully renovated, and the outside had not caught up. There was a smaller Kwila deck, only five years old, and a synthetic lawn, but neither matched the layout of the new outdoor louvre system, so the space under the roof and the space around it did not line up. The garden planters were finished in plaster, and the builders were still on site.
The clients' plan, refined
The clients proposed the layout and we refined it: a square main deck under the louvres, a path along the house and a second deck at the far end, about 60 m² in all, with the lawn in the middle. The builders were on site for our first two weeks, so we worked around them and the council inspection plan already running on the house.
What made it hard
Reusing the old Kwila. The boards came off a deck built to a different plan, in more than one size, and had to work together in a new layout with the screw lines matching, on a fence and planter that were not perfectly straight, so the framing behind them was modified first. Then the drain: a swale with several cesspits and an overflow runs along the house under the deck, and had to stay reachable.
What we built, from the slab up
140 × 19 premium Vitex hardwood decking on 100 × 50 H4 framing, bolted to the old concrete slab with brackets, concrete screws and bolts, with the deck finishing 150 mm off the ground. A frame that close to the ground, sitting on concrete, needs the treatment and the fixings to match. The deck follows the house exactly, holding a 12 mm gap against the cladding the whole way along.
Over the swale the framing is worked around each cesspit and the overflow, and the access points are hatches made in Vitex that sit in the deck as boards. Joints are staggered from mixed lengths, and the boards were run long, then cut in one pass with a track saw.
The lawn is 15 m² of Everlawn 30 mm, nailed to a 100 × 50 H4 timber border over GAP20 and fines, screeded flat with a straight edge and compacted, then rolled out in one piece. The old Kwila was chemically cleaned and sanded before it went back up. The driveway extension, 4.7 × 0.8 m and 100 mm thick, is tied to the old slab with rebar starters drilled 50 mm below its top, over a compacted base, with mesh and 25 MPa concrete.
Consents and who did what
The council inspected our deck as part of the final inspection on the house, checking the 12 mm cladding gap. Our scope: the deck, the lawn, the reused Kwila on the fence and planter, and the driveway extension (20 mm exposed aggregate with white coarse limestone, no oxide). Timber came from PlaceMakers and the lawn from Urban Turf.
BOOK SITE ASSESSMENT
Why it cost what it cost
Most of it is the part nobody looks at. A frame bolted to an old slab 150 mm down has to be treated and fixed for where it sits. Following a renovated house to a 12 mm gap, framing around a working drain and making hatches that disappear into the deck all take time a plain rectangle does not. Reusing old boards is slower than buying new ones, and here it was worth it: five-year-old Kwila back in use beside the new work.
A note on reviews
Not every job produces a review, and we don't chase them. The ones we have are on Google, all from Auckland homeowners who had us on their property for four to eight weeks — which is a longer look at how a crew actually works than most reviews anywhere are based on.
Timber: PlaceMakers
Synthetic lawn: Urban Turf (Everlawn 30 mm)