Oak Pergola, Deck & Pizza Oven, Period Cottage

A real home-improvement project at a period brick-and-timber cottage: a large oak-framed pergola and raised timber deck built to create a covered outdoor dining and entertaining space, complete with a masonry pizza oven and festoon lighting strung across the frame.

It's the kind of job that shows the breadth of the trade — carpentry, groundwork and building work rather than plastering alone. The pergola and balustraded deck were built to sit comfortably against the old brickwork of the house behind.