 Hi I'm Jason Smith with Long Fence Company. We're here today to talk about things you need to consider when building an outdoor living space. The first thing to consider is the size. Are you going to be entertaining on your space? Are you going to have family and friends over? Are you going to have an outdoor eating space? Do you want a grill or a sofa or a chase? To help you visualize the space, a good partner or contractor that you work with will have software where they can show you what the final product will look like. The next thing to think about is traffic flow on your deck or your patio space. How wide are your stairs going to be? Can someone come up and someone go down at the same time? Or are you going to create a bottleneck with a narrow set of stairs? The next thing to consider and something that people often forget about is where are you going to end up when you go down the stairs because sometimes you're just using the deck to get to the backyard. The last thing to consider is the elevation changes in your backyard. Most builders will have your elevation slope away from the house for water drainage. All of these elements are key to keeping in mind so that you have a long, usable lifespan for your outdoor living space.