For a while now, we have wanted to make better use of the space in our garden and have another place to relax, rather than sitting at the 'dining' table on our round patio. We decided to go for a outdoor 'indoor living space' in the form of a garden lounge with sofas and to make many elements of it smart. This photo is our inspiration (without the sea view!).

This is what our garden lounge currently looks like as of May 2022.

Having worked out the area to be covered by decking, I put the design into Autodesk Fusion 360, to work out what materials are required to build it. Whilst ordering the decking, it made sense to also replace the ancient wooden fence panels with matching composite fencing.

The original plan was to have two 3-seater sofas but, we eventually decided on this Long Island corner unit for a modern look.

For the control, I developed my own RGBW controller and had some PCBs manufactured. These enable high- power control at 12V or 24V dc via an Arduino. It supports 4 channels using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM).

My Arduino software allows very powerful control of these LED strips and it supports effects and visual visual notifications.

It's a bit risky to use open fires and fire pits on composite decking, so I'll be using our two Höfats Spin lamps in our garden lounge. These use bioethanol and put out quite a lot of heat. Mostly, they just look really cool :-)

The enclosure I'm using is an IP rated ABS box, 32cm × 24cm × 13cm. It's quite big but 25mm plastic ducting for network and power run into it. It is wall mounted (about 30cm above soil level) and also hidden behind a cover, because it's not very pretty to look at.

I'm using a GJD GJD020 'Opal XL' PIR sensor to detect occupancy. This is the 'Garden Lounge PIR'.

The sensor is provided with 12V power via the 4-way Molex connector on my Smartisant Arduino PRO1 PCB board and the PIR module pulls an Arduino input LOW via its open collector output.

In order for this slave processor to take autonomous action, it also needs a local light level sensor. This will also be reported back to my Home Control System. This basically means the 'Garden Lounge Lights' can be operated automatically based on the local PIR, as well as being intelligently controlled via my contextual smart home and all of its associated user interfaces.

My plan is to use my Smartisant Arduino PRO1 PCB board (V3) to enable all of the smart sensors and control functionality. It will be housed in the wall mounted, waterproof enclosure and mounted to the brick wall. This gives me 32 digital inputs/outputs and the ability to use my Smartisant 8-channel high power output board OP3 for pump and lighting control. It also supports Dallas 1-Wire temperature sensor and 8 analogue inputs.

I've been using Arduino devices like this in my smart home for 10+ years, many in very harsh environments. They have been 100% reliable and provide excellent performance at very low cost.

Underneath the enclosure will be weather-proof double sockets. These are in case I need to power anything in our garden room. Both of these sockets will be under intelligent control by my contextual smart home.

They have manual switches and are paired, so they can't be controlled individually but, they can be manually disabled individually if required. They are modelled as an Appliance called 'Garden Lounge Sockets' by my contextual smart home.

Things got properly serious with the delivery of £1700 / 850Kg of composite decking and fencing. This includes all the joists, fixings, edging strips, etc. I've never laid composite decking before but the supplier provides a comprehensive instruction booklet. How hard can it be? :-)

This is the area cleared, ready to set the levels and put in the foundations. The enclosure, ducting and cables have all been installed.

The composite decking arrived on a huge 4m pallet. I've taken this apart to use the longer lengths as shuttering/edging for the concrete base. The top of this will also be used to set the right level and incline. The top of the decking is to be at ground level, so I have to set the level to account for the thickness of the decking (25mm thick) and the support joists (30mm deep).

It took a while but the foundations have been dug out. I have removed over 3 tons of soil in total. Now I get to fill it all back in again with hardcore and concrete.

You can also see the new composite fencing is installed in this photo.

It took three days to complete the concrete foundations.

Installed the composite support joists. The composite decking is fixed to this support framework using hidden T-clips.

The decking is held in place by these T-clips. They come in packs of 100 (with screws) and I bought 2 packs but, it wasn't quite enough. These are very clever and easy to use. They provide almost invisible fixing of the decking planks.

The T-clips come with these stainless-steel screws. You need an good PH2 bit, long enough to not foul the decking planks.

Stainless-steel screws are not as strong as steel screws, so you have to be careful to not over-tighten them. I used an electric screwdriver to fix them in place with a fairly low clutch setting and then did the final tighten by hand.

After two days of hard work, the decking is nearly complete. The weather has stopped progress for now and I've also run out of T-clips. Some more have been ordered.

The decking is complete! Rain delayed things slightly and so did running out of T-Clips but, I was only 2 days over my self-imposed deadline.

The two untidy wooden fence panels are not ours to change but, we plan to put a screen in front of them and I've left a 10cm gap along this edge of the decking for this.

In the garden lounge enclosure is the 24V dc lighting transformer. The 24V goes to the Arduino board with it's own 5V dc-dc converter, which can handle up to 28V dc as its input. A second dc-dc convertor provides a 12V dc supply for some 12V sensors.

I've run 4 Ethernet cables in ducting to my shed. I identified and labelled them, using a battery connected to two wires and a multimeter at the other end to detect the applied voltage. These are then connected into a wall-mounted 8-way patch panel.

All four cables run into the garden lounge enclosure but, two of them run onwards to the patio enclosure. In each enclosure, I'm terminating the Ethernet cables using a twin RJ45 faceplate.

My original plan was to fix the aluminium LED strip lights to the decking frame but, I decided to fix them in one piece and on brackets, so they can be easily removed later, if necessary. This means the aluminium needs to be one rigid piece and I need to extend one 3m length by about 20cm and another by about 40cm. I've decided to use a short length of 90° profile and have used Ardaldite glue to fix this in place as a support brace and to keep the pieces aligned.

This means I can add the semi-clear diffusers and fill the channel with a clear expoxy resin, by tilting them at an angle before they are fitted.

To prolong the life of the LEDs in an outdoor environment, I'm encapsulating them in a UV resistant, clear expoxy resin. This was quite a challenge as it meant the profiles couldn't have any gaps for the resin to leak out. I did an initial fill to about 3mm deep. The resin won't reduce the light output but, this is not a problem anyway, as the strips are very bright on full power.

This is what our garden lounge currently looks like as of May 2022. The one thing left to do, is to screen the neighbours tatty fence and make the space look more coherent as a room.

We have been using the garden lounge a lot this summer. I often sit outside and have my breakfast here. This is view looking along the back fence and over the pond. We have slightly re-organised the corner sofa, to provide more space.

I've now ordered some more composite fencing from Cladco to screen these two fence panels. I'll be creating another fence just in front of them, which will match the other fencing shown here.

This is with the screen installed.