When most people picture a deck, they picture maintenance: a structure you sand, seal, and eventually tear out and replace. At Northern Outdoor Living, we start from a different premise. The outdoor living spaces we design for Twin Cities homeowners are built to be permanent. We call them forever decks, and it’s not a slogan. It’s the standard we build every project to.
That promise rests on the foundation, quite literally. We frame every deck with Owens Corning Lumber, a fully synthetic structural lumber made from high-density polyethylene and Owens Corning’s glass-fiber technology. It contains no wood, which is the crucial difference from the traditional lumber most decks are framed with. Wood framing loses strength over time, absorbs moisture unevenly, and typically carries only a 10- to 20-year warranty. Owens Corning Lumber carries a warranty of roughly 50 to 75 years, and up to lifetime coverage for residential applications.
That matters more than most homeowners realize because the frame usually fails first. On a typical deck, the top boards can still look fine while the joists underneath quietly rot. A forever deck reverses that equation.
On top of that frame, we build with the deck boards we trust most: Deckorators’ mineral-based Voyage and Summit, Eva-Last’s Pioneer and Apex, TimberTech AZEK PVC, and Wolf PVC. Each carries its own manufacturer warranty, and we’ll help you choose the one that best fits your style and how you’ll use the space.
Together, that combination reframes what a deck even is. Instead of a maintenance item you’ll be replacing in two decades, your outdoor space becomes a permanent extension of your home. Several of our clients have already told us they consider theirs the last deck they’ll ever have to buy. Given what’s underneath, that’s a fair expectation.
For homeowners in Hastings and across the Greater Twin Cities who are replacing an old, failing deck, the forever-deck approach answers the question most people are really asking: how do I never do this again? Our answer is to build it right the first time, with the best materials on the market.
If you’re weighing your options, we’re always happy to walk you through what a forever deck could look like in your own backyard.
