FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

We are located in the heart of downtown Waynesboro, Virginia. We service about an hour drive, or roughly 45 miles from our shop. 

We frequently work in: Charlottesville, Crozet, Harrisonburg, Lexington, Wintergreen, Nellysford. Throughout Augusta and Nelson County.

While we do not give “Free Estimates,” We have found that a successful project starts with a thoughtful and professional design and budget management.  Therefore our process starts with helping you set a realistic budget to meet your needs and goals and moves to a fixed price once design and selections are complete.

If you already have a design, we’ll be glad to provide a quote for what it would cost to build it and work with the architect or design engineer that drew it up. 

The Spring is our busiest time of the year for inquiries because everyone is starting to think ahead to summer and anticipating getting outside. But with project timelines, having your space ready for summer is unlikely.

Early fall is the best time to start your project to be ready for the following summer. If you can use that time to think back over the past summer and what was missing from your space and how you would have liked to have used it or what you might have needed to enjoy it more, that can help inform our design process. 

But the best time to start your project is when you are ready. Our goal is not to create just a single season space, we want to create a space you will use for many years, building with materials that are meant to last. So whenever you’re ready, we would love to work with you.

The permitting process varies based on your locality, however, in general:

• Backyard projects with structural elements, like porches, elevated decks, and accessory structures, like pergolas or pavilions, that are over a certain size, will all need permitting.
• For the addition of smaller structures, you will often need a permit but the permitting process is usually less complicated.
• Things that are considered part of the landscape, like gardens, patios, retaining walls, and including our Quick Decks, typically do not need a permit. 

The Design Process is a discovery process that helps create an outdoor living space that really fits you and your family. 

We will work really hard to understand: 

• How are you going to use this space?
• Who’s going to be out there?
• What factors are most important to you?
• What are the things that prevent you from using your space right now? 

When we come out to see your backyard space, our team will take measurements and your designer will get to know you more and ask lots of questions. 

Our team will give lots of suggestions and show you a variety of materials that fit your style and desires. After getting your feedback and thoughts we’ll move forward with creating design that fits your needs and style.   To help you through the process we utilize samples, 2D layouts and 3D modeling so you are able to truly see what your project will look like.

The goal of the design process is to create a space that will really meet all your needs. Which is part of the reason why we think Design is such an important part of the custom building process.

There are so many great reasons why design is important. 

To Discover – Design is a discovery process that helps you design an outdoor living space that will truly allow you to enjoy the outdoors in daily life right in your own backyard.

To Visualize – Part of the design process is to show it to you with digital renderings. Seeing it visually helps you evaluate whether it actually fits your needs. 

To Have Confidence – Design delivers the end product before we even start. Once you have a design in place, you can have confidence moving forward in construction. 

To Save Costs – You don’t want to invest thousands of dollars in your backyard and still have a space you don’t use. The little bit of time and effort that it takes to think through design, before you spend the big bucks will definitely save you in the long term. 

It’s Comprehensive – We provide design in-house to fit outdoor living construction because there was a gap in services for these types of projects. While there are many great architects, engineers, and other designers out there, they cost significantly more and don’t have time for outdoor living projects. 

The design process is really important to delivering an outdoor living space that you will love and a place that you will spend your time on a consistent basis.

Most people we work with are investing $75,000 or more in their backyard. But that’s just the average, some are much more and some are less.

So the bigger question is: what affects the cost of your project? 

To start, what is your existing space like? 

• Do you have something to start with that we can use or upgrade or can be added to, a nice patio or an existing deck in good condition. If so, then your investment might be a little lower.
• If you have something in your current space that needs to be demolished because it’s in disrepair, then you actually have the expense to go backwards and get rid of everything that’s there, so you can start over.
• Maybe you have a blank slate. A lot of the new construction houses that we work on had very minimal things or nothing put in the backyard.  

From there the cost drivers are: 

• The complexity of the work: The more custom that the work is, the higher the cost or the greater the investment.
• The scale of the project: The larger the space, the greater the investment. For example, a 1500 sq ft patio will cost a lot more than a 200 sq ft patio.
• The quality of the materials: There’s a lot of variation of materials and therefore there’s a lot of variation in price of materials. If budget is really important to you, some flexibility will allow us to help you find materials that fit your needs within your budget, with the goal still being long lasting materials. Unfortunately, the cost of materials has continued to increase, so building an outdoor living space has become more expensive than it was just a few years ago. 

We have investment discussions early on, so that we’re designing your space according to what fits your needs and your finances.

We have a great variety of materials available to our clients. If you can imagine it, we can make it happen. We have a lot of great vendors and partnerships to get what we need and what our customers want. 

Because we specialize in outdoor living construction, we have a growing base of expertise about the materials available for a variety of outdoor projects. 

There are lots of different material options and new products are being created all the time. Part of the benefit of a company that specializes in outdoor living construction, is that we have seen these products in action and we are constantly keeping our ear to the ground for new trends. We are experienced in helping you select the best products and materials to fit your needs and goals, and that will be long lasting. So when you tell us, “I want a material that will do this, or look like this, or perform this way and so forth.” And we can come back and say “We know this material will meet your needs.”

Material Selection is a really fun stage in the process. We strive really hard to work with each client within their budget and the style or aesthetic they are looking for.

Timelines have a lot of variability.  So let’s talk about what affects the timeline of a project. 

The Design Phase 

We allow as much time as necessary to get your Design just right. We want to personalize the Design process to your own pace of discovering and thinking through the elements for your space. 

Pre-Construction 

Once we have a design and signed contract, the pre-construction timelines vary on a number of things. 

• Permitting. If your project does require a permit, what locality you’re in matters a lot. Some localities can take two to three months to approve certain types of permits, while other localities take a couple of weeks.
• Supply chain, while a lot better than it was, there are still challenges and sometimes long delays for certain materials. So depending on what materials you choose, that can really affect the timeline of getting your materials together.
• Our workload queue. As much as possible, we take projects sequentially as they come in and our focus is on the projects that we’re working on today. Our focus is completing the project we’re on, so that when we come to you, we can give your project our full attention. 

Construction Phase 

Once we’re in construction, it’s really a matter of how complex the project is. With the larger, more complex projects, taking more time than the smaller scale simple projects to build. If you need demolition before we build, that can also add some time. 

We will always do our best to communicate with honesty and integrity to give you approximate timelines.