Qi rides the wind and scatters, but is retained when encountering water.^[5]

-that, from wiki... 

Really, I don't know much about feng shui, not at all-- but when designing this deck with the customer... on the spot (on your feet engineering I sometimes call it), we began joking a little about making it . . well, feng shui. 

To me I guess that meant, at the time- once again kind of joking around, that it would be balanced. 

It was Chris's idea (roughly based on a picture of one we did last year) to measure from left (east) at the door to the center of the fireplace, then to carry that measurement doubled, to the right. . or west as it were. He wanted the decking at opposing forty-five degree biases, a sort of herring bone pattern. From there we did some tweeks, such as switching from a full wrap-around step to having rails at each side with a partial wrapped step.

Bottom line; it was fun to work for someone with a little bit of imagination and a not so tight pocketbook, so we endeavored to take it to the limit. 

The guys that did most of the work . . .

 Happy guy. I would be too if I had this outdoor space!

 From the tip of those pointed center boards to each edge is exactly 138 and 3/4 inches. Note: the two sides are mirrors of each other.

 I learned from Harry's Ghost while visiting in Texas that the Japanese build pagodas and such using always, odd numbers (feng shui being Chinese!), so I decided on extending the step from two boards to three which makes it much more user friendly anyway. Also, three newel post per rail side, spaced perfectly.

Grandview, Missouri, USA