Hi Love the setting! From what you are describing, it sounds like you have a ventilation issue. A deck lower than 400mm off the ground needs to have ventilation just like the house. This typically means the sides are open (doesn't happen) and the spacing is around 5-6mm between boards. If you don't have this, the water that gets in cannot evaporate and will keep the ground and the underside of the deck moist, even with your drainage as it can pool in sections. This in turn means your deck is always wet. Once that happens, it is only a matter of time before fungus growth/soft rot etc occurs. We always excavate a low to the ground deck to ensure we have 400mm of clearance to the underside of the bearers. Another way is to ensure there is a moisture impermeable membrane across the ground (plastic) covered with gravel and graded down with vents placed all around. Cheers

They might be Baltic Pine? What is the age of the house? You could do a google image search for "Baltic pine floorboards" and "cypress pine floorboards" see what the grain and knots look like- do either match with your boards? Yes, you can make them look more like the white washed photo. We have cypress pine boards and recently had them sanded and refinished with Bona White as we wanted to ensure they had no yellowy or orange tinge and make them look more contemporary. They were very orange from the original oil based varnish. We're very happy with them, although we only had one coat of white and it may not have shown up as well as our sample boards. Two coats would have made them more white. The Bona White system was chosen because it is low VOC water based, so doesn't have a strong odour, compared with solvents. Sample boards, showing two coats of Bona White top section, one coat of Bona White bottom section and a varnished board with no stain. This is on Cypress floorboards.

" It is sooo tricky to get the balance right between modern and sympathetic to 70's." 100%, and if this stuff was easy, us Pro's wouldn't have a job ;) It's always ALL about balance, and when it comes to questions of what to do to existing dwellings it's probably just as much about what you don't do. You need to get the scaling , articulation and detail right. You don't want to do something that looks tacked on and incongruent with the existing. If you are extending a deck to the side on an upper level you'll need to take into consideration potential overlooking to neighbouring private space. We're currently working on a similar upper level deck extension to an existing 70's dwelling, and what we've done is use a combination of different balustrade materials (charcoal random depth timber battening & frameless glass) to simultaneously control the overlooking, focus the outlook, and achieve a balanced complimentary design. It depends on what the deck is for, is it for private use or are you trying to gain access to a view? These things will all influence the design. Budget of course will also influence what you do. The design solution ultimately should begin with responding to the function first and foremost, and then what it actually looks like will (should) naturally spring from this in conjunction with a sensitive response in balance with the existing & with consideration of your budget constraint Good luck! PD www.pauldistefanodesign.com

I'm not a huge fan of that yellowy beige , but I can understand why you'd keep it . I can also understand getting rid of the other tones . Personally though , I'd get rid of the red in preference to painting the decking -- I am a fan of wood that you can see is wood haha . Plus I think it looks great , whereas the red not so much . So I'd want to know the new white and blue tones and maybe work in with them -- lets face it , red white and blue is probably best left for another country haha . So maybe change the red for a different but complimentary blue , or go charcoal or similar .