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WESTLAKE VILLAGE LANDSCAPING

This landscaping project started for us about two years ago. When I say started for us, I mean the owners had bought the house several years earlier and had a dream to make this their retirement home. They hired someone (who I found out to my surprise is still working in the area) to build their new deck and patio cover. My understanding is that it took months and months to get done after the owners had paid for half the project, the original person they had dealt with ended up getting someone else to actually do the project and it didn’t come out the way they wanted it at all. The shape of the structure was done wrong, the wood was very rough (which collected tons of dirt which was very visible considering the white color it was painted), and there were some other technical issues with it.

We came into the picture later to do some other aspects of the overall landscape project which included a stone and brick patio on the side yard with a small patio cover, outdoor lighting, a brick driveway, various garden planting, a rock garden and some other amenities. Recently, the owners had us back to finally remove and redo the patio cover in the back yard that had been mis-built earlier. The patio cover is an important feature in the yard since the back yard of the property faces onto a lake with a boat dock (the major feature of the homes in this area) and the patio cover, besides providing shade, frames the view of the boat dock and the inlet of the lake. Getting it right, therefore, was a big deal.

The new patio cover was finished within less than two weeks including one week off-site where the wood was sanded, primed and a coat of paint was added before bringing it to the property for final construction. We do it this way so the imperfections in the wood are handled and so that there is paint on all the surfaces. This means that in the hundreds of places where the wood touches each other after construction, there are two protective coatings of paint helping to keep moisture from causing damage. This cannot be achieved by building first and then doing all the painting after the fact. Considering that the wood is directly exposed to all the elements of weather all year long, we think this is important. When the construction is done, a final painting is done to add the third coat. Done this way, the life on these natural wood patio covers is quite long.

The decorative end cuts on the wood (called corbels) and the knee braces (support timbers attached to the posts) were done to match the other roof we had built on the side yard. This particular style goes very well with the house and the owner’s taste.

Another feature of this patio cover is something we developed years ago. One of the beams is supported from above, bolted to a rafter. When the roof is done, the large bolt is covered over, sanded and painted so it is invisible. It is doubly sealed at the top to prevent water getting to the bolt. We have employed this building tactic several times and it created the effect of a floating beam (large support timber) that appears to have no support since there is no obvious post holding it up and no visible hardware. It makes a great conversation piece, but also allows us to free the patio space from excess posts which block the use of furniture.

The picture is taken from the boat dock showing the back of the house, exactly the view that the homeowner gets when he returns from a trip on his boat.
Bruce Larsen
Larsen Landscape
Simi Valley, CA