Composite deck over a poured patio

The back of the house dropped almost eight feet to the yard, so the old deck ended in a ladder-steep stair nobody used. The brief was to make the whole slope usable.

We poured a 380-square-foot patio at grade first, then framed a two-level composite deck above it — the upper level off the kitchen for the table, a lower landing wide enough to sit on. The structure is pressure-treated framing with joist tape on every top edge, decked in grey composite with hidden fasteners.

The stair now runs across the slope in two flights instead of straight down it, which is what made the lower patio worth having.