DIY Wood Screen Room for Deck
- If the deck is small, use space on the farthest end for the room. Leave the deck's step-up area from the yard open. Try to make the room no smaller than 10-by-10 feet. If possible, build the room directly outside an exterior door of the house. This will make it easier to bring food into the room for outdoor dining. Often these rooms are stand-alone units; however, if you can invest a lot in the materials and design, you may want to attach it to the house itself.
- Design of your screen starts with a sketch of a square, rectangular or octagon shape with an entrance door. Divide the shape into several sections, so you will have smaller patterns for cutting screen material. Most screen rooms will have a waist-high dividing board running around the perimeter. This division makes it easier to cover with screening, since top and bottom sections of screening can be nailed to the dividing board. Design the roof area as a separate unit that will fit over the room in a cap fashion.
- For a four-sided room, use 2-by-8 boards to build the framework. Leave an opening for a door on one wall. Build four walls separately and connect them with four-inch stainless steel screws. Once you have attached all four walls into place as a single unit, secure the bottom of the room's framework to the deck. Use L-shaped brackets with pre-made holes to screw the room's floor-level framing boards to the deck. Place the brackets inside the room, so this hardware won't show from the outside.
- Lighter weight boards are best for the roof so that you can easily place it to cap all of the walls. You can use a variety of outdoor fabrics to create a roof cover over board framing. You'll want to choose a fabric that is water repellent and appropriate for awnings. Secure the roof at the top of the walls with nuts and bolts placed into pre-drilled holes. This will make it easier to take the room down, if you ever decide to move it.
- Either fabric screening or metal screening are good choices. Remember to leave excess when you cut screening, so you can staple it with generous margins. For example, you might allow a 2-inch excess border around every edge. To make the edges neat, you can screw metal trim over the stapled areas or nail wood trim over stapled areas.
- Using 1-by-4 boards for the framework, design the door with X-shaped cross pieces in the top and bottom sections to add stability. You can staple screening to the door on either side, but most designs call for placing it on the side that will face into the room. Since the door may get caught by the wind, use a latch to keep it closed. Invest in high-quality hinges and place a small chain at the top inner side of the door. This will keep the wind from springing it open and possibly warping it.
