Know Your Terms

• Cascading stairs: Cascading stairs wrap around the corner of a low deck and are an attractive and functional approach to increasing the usable area. They usually consist of five or fewer steps to avoid safety concerns.

• Timber-frame: A frame structure of large posts and beams that are joined with pegs or other types of decorative joinery. The walls of the structure are almost always positioned on the outside of the timber frame, leaving the timbers exposed for visual effect. They are extraordinarily strong structures that can last hundreds of years.