Home / Service Areas / Jefferson County / Evergreen, CO / Evergreen Design Consultations
A Working Site Visit, Not a Sales Call
Foothills lots do not give up their answers from a photo. We come out, stand under your deck, read the slope, and figure out where the water is actually going before anyone talks about panels. You keep the written scope whether you hire us or not.
The lot decides more than the catalog does
At 7,200 feet on a hillside, the deck you are standing on is only half the problem. The other half is the ground underneath it.
Most Evergreen decks we look at are perched on a grade that drops away from the house, sometimes gently, sometimes hard enough that the low corner of the deck is eleven or twelve feet off the dirt while the high corner is barely four. That single measurement changes almost everything downstream: how much usable headroom a ceiling leaves you, whether posts need bracing, where a drain line can pitch, and whether the finished space feels like a room or a crawl space. It is the first thing our installer measures, and it is measured at all four corners, not once.
The second thing is the walkout relationship. Plenty of homes up here open from a lower level onto grade at one end and float over a slope at the other. If you intend to actually use the space under the deck, the door position, the step count, and the finished floor height all have to line up with the ceiling plane. That is a conversation better had standing in the yard with a tape measure than over email.
What gets measured
Where the water goes, and whether it freezes there
An Underdeck ceiling is a drainage system with a finish on it. Everything that lands on your deck boards has to be caught, carried sideways, and let out somewhere. On a flat suburban lot, “somewhere” is easy. On a foothills lot it is the whole design question, because the exit point you pick in July is the spot that ices over in February.
Deck height at every corner. Four measurements, not one. The spread between them tells us how much pitch we can build into the panels and how much headroom survives it.
Post spacing and bearing. Where the existing posts land dictates where a gutter or beam can run, and whether a pergola column can share footings with what is already there.
The drainage path, end to end. We trace it from the high side of the deck to the point where water leaves the structure, then keep tracing on the ground. Dumping runoff onto a walking surface, a stair tread, or the uphill side of a patio is how you get a sheet of ice at the one spot people put their feet.
Slope and grade below. Which way the ground falls, where it already channels during a hard rain, and whether the finished space sits above or into that path.
Sun and wind orientation. Altitude sun is harsh and low in winter, and Evergreen ridgelines funnel wind in ways a street map will not show you. A west-facing deck wants a different cover than one tucked into a north slope under ponderosa.
The existing framing. Joist spacing, ledger condition, rim board, blocking. The framing you already have sets the outside limit of what can hang underneath it, and we would rather find a soft joist end now than after material is on a truck.
Materials and timing
Matching a mountain house, and a mountain calendar
Evergreen homes tend to carry heavy exterior materials: stone columns, timber, deep stains, cedar and board siding that has weathered into something specific. A ceiling that reads bright white against all of that will look bolted on. Part of the visit is holding actual samples up against your siding and trim in real daylight, at the angle you will see them from the yard, and picking a finish that disappears into the house instead of competing with it. We do the same with pergola members, because a slim aluminum profile next to a twelve-inch stone column reads thin.
The other honest part of the conversation is scheduling. Snow season is real up here, and the shoulder months move around from year to year. Some work runs fine in cold weather and some does not, and a project scoped in October is planning around a different install window than one scoped in April. We will tell you plainly at the walkthrough where your project likely falls, rather than promising a date and quietly sliding it. If timing matters to you, say so early and we will build the scope around it.
If you are weighing a ceiling and a pergola together, we plan them in one pass. The two share posts, drainage routing, and sightlines, and designing them separately is how people end up with a downspout landing exactly where a column wants to be. Our Evergreen underdeck pergola work starts from the same walkthrough.
Before we arrive
A short list that makes the visit worth more
You do not need to prepare anything. These few things just get you further in the same ninety minutes.
- Clear enough access under the deck that someone can walk it and read the framing. Move the firewood stack if it is against the posts.
- Think about how you actually want to use the space. Dining, a hot tub, a shaded spot to read: each one pulls the design a different direction.
- Know roughly when you want it done, so we can talk honestly about the snow-season window.
- Dig up the original deck plans or permit if you have them. Not required, and helpful when they exist.
- Note where water already pools or ices in winter. You have watched this lot for years and we have not.
- If your neighborhood has architectural guidelines, mention them and we will fold the submittal into the scope.
What you walk away with
A written scope covering deck dimensions, framing notes, the drainage plan, the recommended system, and a materials list. It is a reference document, not a contract, and it is yours to compare against anything else you are looking at.
We follow up once. After that the timing is yours.
Schedule Your Free Visit →Common questions
Asked before the first visit
Is the on-site consultation actually free?
Yes. There is no design fee, no deposit, and nothing to sign to get us out there. The written scope is yours to keep either way, and plenty of Evergreen homeowners use it to compare other bids line for line.
Who shows up, a salesperson or an installer?
One of our installers. The person reading your framing and drainage is the same kind of tradesperson who would build the job, so technical questions get answered in the yard instead of relayed back to an office.
How long does the visit take on a steep lot?
Plan on 60 to 90 minutes. Foothills lots run longer than flat ones because the grade has to be walked, not just the deck, and the drainage exit gets traced on the ground.
My deck is very high on one end. Does that rule anything out?
Almost never. A big height spread changes the panel pitch and the post plan, and sometimes it is the reason a project turns out better than the homeowner pictured, since there is real headroom to work with. We measure all four corners so the plan reflects the deck you have.
What if the framing needs work first?
We document what we find and explain what it means. Small items sometimes fold into the install scope. Anything structural gets referred out to a carpenter or general contractor, and we can point you toward people we have worked alongside in Jefferson County.
Can we do the walkthrough in winter?
Yes, and there is an argument for it. Snow on the ground shows you where drifts sit and where meltwater runs, which is information a July visit has to guess at. Deep snow can hide grade, so we may want a second short look in spring before finalizing the drainage path.
Anything still open? Send us the details, call (303) 481-1967, or browse the finished project gallery to see how these spaces come out. You can also see everything we do around town on the Evergreen service page.
Where we walk decks
Evergreen and the surrounding foothills
We consult throughout Evergreen and the nearby Jefferson County mountain communities, including Bergen Park, Hiwan, Kittredge, Genesee, and the lots along Upper Bear Creek. Wheat Ridge to Evergreen is a short run up the canyon, so a walkthrough here is a normal week for our crew rather than a special trip.
