Home Improvement While renovating the interior of a home, Charlie Allen Renovations put the bones in place for a future roof deck that became the “crown jewel” of the remodel Charlie Allen Renovations and Traverse Architects built and designed this roof deck at a home north of Boston. Jane Messinger Photography

Like most design/build companies, we pride ourselves on thoughtful collaboration with our clients. Sometimes we push back if we feel an idea may either move the budget beyond its parameters or if an idea conflicts with a more important overall design goal. In some cases, the client will push back when something means a lot to them, and we find a way to make it work. We had just such a case a few years back regarding some priceless outdoor space that the owners wanted to capture. It didn’t fit into the budget, nor did it fit into the scope of work at the time. But with some foresight and clever budgeting, we were ultimately successful in giving them the space they wanted, and it was all worth the effort.

The project in question was a rooftop deck at a home north of Boston in a hilly area that afforded a view of the city skyline — not from the living space, but from the roof. The clients expressed how much they wanted to capture that view. At the time, we were strictly designing and working on interior spaces; a roof deck was nowhere in the plans or permitting that we had. There was, however, a skylight in the laundry room. Through it, we all went up onto a relatively flat portion of the roof and were amazed at the view and the openness of the space. We immediately saw what the client had been advocating for, and that got the wheels turning.

Charlie Allen Renovations and Traverse Architects built and designed this roof deck at a home north of Boston. – Jane Messinger Photography

Building a roof deck is a fairly complicated affair, far from simply installing framing on top of the roof and adding decking and handrails. The deck itself has to have its own support system within the framing of the existing house. That framing has to carry the deck’s weight all the way down to the foundation. If part of this deck’s frame did not line up with the foundation, we would have to create our own concrete footings at the basement level to pick up the weight. This where creative budgeting came in.

Since we were working on the floors below, what we did was to design our deck with the intention of building it at a future date. We had a structural engineer work out all the loads and specify the beams and posts we would need to support the deck. With the walls and ceilings open in the rooms below, we installed the posts and structural beams necessary to build the deck and stopped there. Doing the structural work as part of this earlier phase with everything open kept the future cost of the deck to a fraction of what it would have cost to do everything at a later date. The future deck was also going to have lighting, power, and a small outdoor kitchen, so we made sure plumbing and electrical was brought close and ready to tap into when the time came.

Once all the infrastructure was in place, we carried on with the work we had in progress to finish up the interior living space. Well after the clients had moved back into their newly remodeled space, we began planning exterior projects: landscaping and, of course, the roof deck. Knowing the shape of the deck based on the structural work we had already done, we designed the handrail system, lighting, and a mini-kitchen. We even installed a pergola to cut down on the unrelenting sun that any rooftop is bound to get. We used a combination of western red cedar and composite materials and cable rail to minimize interruption of the sight lines. We created a “head house” or roof dormer with a door to access the deck from the living space. A few steps were installed at the end of a bedroom hallway to access the roof’s new deck.

In the end, it was a stunning success — the crown jewel of a multiphase project. But it may not have happened had our client not had the vision and the determination to ask the tough questions. It is a great case study on collaboration, communication, and persistence. We may be the professionals, but often, the clients see things that we miss and the project is always the better for it.

Mark Philben is the project development manager at Charlie Allen Renovations in Cambridge. Send your questions to [email protected]. Questions are subject to editing. Subscribe to the Globe’s free real estate newsletter — our weekly digest on buying, selling, and design — at Boston.com/address-newsletter.

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