About us
A belvedere is a structure built to enjoy a beautiful view.
That is what a deck is for, and it is the bar every project here has to clear. Not just built to code. Built to sit on.
I'm Austin Band, and I grew up here.
I grew up in Maryland building things with my aunt and working in the yard with my mom. I still live here, and most of what I build is close to home. Family comes first for me, which is most of why I would rather be a company your neighbors vouch for than a company that is simply big.
The long way into this trade
Economics at the University of Maryland. Coaching high school baseball. An apprenticeship under a private car dealer, a physical therapy office in Rockville, software sales out of Berlin. Then decks.
It reads like a wandering resume. It was the same job every time: sit down with people who are about to spend money, and be straight with them. The car business in particular taught me how an industry earns a bad reputation, and what the few exceptions do differently.
How I run this company
I learned this trade working for other people, and I saw how homeowners get hurt in it: work sold before anyone knows how to build it or what it really costs, and the difference quietly handed back to the customer. This company is built to make that impossible.
Nothing gets sold here that we do not already know how to build. The price is built in front of you at your table, not emailed three days later once somebody has worked out what to leave out. Permits and inspections are inside the number. And I pay my crew properly, which is not generosity, it is quality control: crews that get shorted cut corners and then leave, and you inherit both.
When you call, you get me. The same person who measures the deck, prices it in front of you, and is on the hook for it in writing for the next ten years. I will walk your existing deck and tell you what I find, good and bad: which posts are solid, whether water has gotten in where the deck meets your house, whether your frame can carry new boards. If the honest answer is that you need half the project you called about, that is the answer you get.
Owner-operated is slower to scale, and better to hire.
What every project includes
- An exact price presented in person, the same visit, on every resurfacing project. New builds and full board-and-railing transformations can usually be priced on site that same visit too, though I will not promise it on every job
- One clear price for the deck we recommend, a straight answer about why, and the same code-perfect structure no matter which boards you pick
- Premium TimberTech and Trex boards, entry to architectural grade
- Permits and inspections handled where required
- A 10-year written workmanship warranty, on top of 25 to 50 year manufacturer board warranties
Where we work
We cover Baltimore County, Frederick County, Howard County, and Montgomery County. If you're elsewhere in the state, call. If we can get to you, we'll build for you.
The best day in this business is not the day the contract gets signed. It is the last walkthrough, when the tools are gone and the people who have been living with a construction project in their backyard are standing on the finished thing. That is what I am in this for.
The first step costs nothing: an honest look at your deck and an exact price, same visit, no obligation.