A modern deck renovation transforms an overgrown Brooklyn garden into a family room
Overhaul an overgrown urban garden
Two years ago, we bought this 2,000-square-foot townhome, located between the Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts neighborhoods. The attached single-family house was built in 1908, and we’ve been slowly working on updating it. Last year, with the pandemic grounding us at home, we got to work renovating our backyard.
The yard was a blank canvas. The previous owners had laid concrete slabs on the ground in the area closest to the house, but the space was otherwise covered in grass. We allowed it to grow wild our first summer here. The brush got so high that our dog, Sasha, would walk out and disappear. We wanted to turn our barren backyard into a place that we—my husband, Henry, our son, Gavin, and myself—could enjoy.
Solving the issue of rain
Henry and I knew we wanted a deck with built-in seating, and we loved the modern look of horizontal fencing. We liked bluestone and wanted to incorporate it. But our first concern was to identify and solve some engineering problems. We’d had a water issue in our fence-enclosed backyard since we bought the place—flooding whenever it rained. We needed a contractor who could fix that.
Seeking the right expertise
The process of finding our Sweeten contractor was streamlined and direct. We posted our project and soon received a bid from a small firm we thought we wanted to hire. We threw out many concerns as well as ideas when we discussed the job with the contractor, and when we saw his great sketches incorporating everything, we knew he was the one we were searching for.
Our contractor started the job as soon as the state of New York allowed his profession to return to work in 2020, when COVID-19 was ongoing. We wanted the job to be safe for him and his team, and we were very cautious given the situation in New York City. Since the project was outdoors, we decided to go ahead.
We were happy we did. If we’d started even a few weeks later, we would have been affected by a lumber shortage caused by restaurants in NYC building outdoor dining stalls—the only way they could serve patrons under pandemic regulations.