Snohomish is a town that takes its old things seriously — the antique shops along First Street, the Victorian and farmhouse architecture on the hill above the river, the storefronts that have watched the Snohomish River rise and fall for over a century. A new deck here has to do two jobs at once: perform like a modern structure through wet Puget Sound winters, and look like it belongs on a house that may be older than the state highway out front.
Decks for Historic Homes and River-Valley Lots
Much of our Snohomish work is on homes built between the 1890s and 1930s, where the original porch or a previously added deck has simply run out of decades. These projects reward care: we match railing proportions and skirting details to the era of the house, keep sightlines appropriate to a historic streetscape, and hide the modern engineering where it belongs — underneath. A composite deck can absolutely look right behind a Victorian if the detailing is handled thoughtfully.
Down toward the river and out in the valley, the problems are different. The Snohomish River floodplain means high water tables, soft winter soils, and fog that keeps everything damp well into midmorning. Footings need to be sized and placed for ground that spends months saturated, and posts need standoff hardware so they are never wicking moisture. We have seen plenty of valley decks where the surface boards were fine but the structure below had quietly rotted at every ground connection.