Outdoor living · Carmel Valley
Carmel Valley outdoor living, designed and built by one team.
Accredited, certified and held to accountCalifornia contractor #922807, in business in San Diego for 21 years
Outdoor living in Carmel Valley
The rooms beyond the walls.
San Diego has gorgeous weather nearly every day of the year, so you want a yard or an outdoor area in which to spend all those lovely days and nights. No matter the size of your space, the possibilities are nearly endless.
Kaminskiy designs and builds outdoor living spaces across San Diego County: outdoor kitchens, covered patios, decks, pools and fire features, on one contract. In San Diego the outdoor space is as much a part of the home as the rooms inside the walls. An outdoor living project can be a deck or a patio, an outdoor kitchen, a California room, a pool with its cabana, a fireplace or a fire pit, and the landscape that ties them together. It is where dinner moves and where friends and relatives gather. Our designers draw it, our architectural team permits it, and our own crews build it, from the first sketch to the final walkthrough on one contract, with a fixed price in writing before anything is built. Award-winning in San Diego, founded by Sergei Kaminskiy and still founder-led.
Carmel Valley was built mostly in the 1990s and 2000s, so its kitchens and primary baths are reaching the age where families want them redone properly, inside well-run HOAs. Permits for outdoor living spaces in Carmel Valley are issued by the City of San Diego. Our design and architectural team drafts the construction documents, a licensed structural engineer stamps them where the scope calls for it, and we submit them and manage the whole process for you.
Start with a complimentary consultationOutdoor living in Carmel Valley
Outdoor living in Carmel Valley: a modest yard, used all year.
Carmel Valley yards are planned and compact, and the ones on the canyon rims come with a view and a brush management zone. Outdoor living here means extending the family room outside: a covered patio, an outdoor kitchen on the side yard, lighting and a fire feature, designed so the whole yard works rather than one corner of it.
The most requested Carmel Valley outdoor project is a covered patio off the family room with lighting, heaters, a ceiling fan and an outdoor kitchen, so the yard is a room from March to November. A patio cover attached to the house needs a City permit and the HOA's approval, and we design it to match the roof and trim.
Homes along Los Peñasquitos and Gonzales canyons sit in the City's brush management zones, which set what can be built and planted near the slope. Hardscape, a fire feature and the seating stay in the right zone; the view is the point, and we design to keep it.
A pool fits many Carmel Valley yards, usually with the spa and the seating area doing double duty. Setbacks from the house and the property line, the HOA's review and a separate pool permit all apply, and the pool and the hardscape should be one design, not two contractors.
Families who want the yard to hold a birthday party and a quiet Tuesday evening equally well, and owners of a canyon lot who want to live on the view. Our Carmel Valley outdoor living remodel in the gallery shows what the modest yard can become.
Finishes are chosen at our Design Center in Rancho Bernardo, about 15 minutes along State Route 56; the first meeting is in your yard.
Our work in Carmel Valley and nearby
Carmel Valley remodels, and the neighbors next door.
Two projects in Carmel Valley, then recent projects in Del Mar. Every photo is a Kaminskiy home, designed and built by our own team.
Remodeling in Carmel Valley
Every service in Carmel Valley. One local team.
This page is about outdoor living in Carmel Valley. Every other Kaminskiy service has its own Carmel Valley page too, and the neighborhoods around Carmel Valley have theirs: the same designers, project managers and crews, from one Design Center.
Nearby neighborhoods
We design and build outdoor living spaces in every neighborhood of San Diego County. See the San Diego outdoor living page or schedule a consultation.
The Carmel Valley outdoor living guide
Outdoor living in Carmel Valley, in detail.
How an outdoor living project goes in Carmel Valley.
Attached to the house, matched to the roof, with lighting, power, a fan and heaters. The HOA reviews it; the City permits it. It is the room that gets used most.
Grill, counter, a sink and a refrigerator in a run that fits the side yard, with gas and water brought from the house. Materials chosen for sun rather than salt in Carmel Valley.
A fire feature placed within the brush management zone's rules on a canyon lot, low-voltage lighting on the paths and the planting, and seating oriented to the view.
A City permit for structures and utilities, a separate permit for a pool, and the HOA's approval for anything visible. Three to six months from the first visit to completion. If the plan grows into enclosed space, it becomes a room addition.
Room additions in Carmel ValleyGood questions
Carmel Valley outdoor living FAQ: a few straight answers before you call.
Permits with the City of San Diego, value, cost, planning, decks and patios, outdoor kitchens, pools, fire and water-wise landscaping. More on the full FAQ page.
Read all FAQsNothing. The in-home design consultation is complimentary anywhere in Carmel Valley. A designer comes to your home, listens to what you want to change, takes measurements and photos, and tells you honestly whether we are the right fit for the project.
We do. Permits for outdoor living spaces in Carmel Valley are issued by the City of San Diego. Our design and architectural team drafts the construction documents, a licensed structural engineer stamps them where the scope calls for it, and we submit them and manage the whole process for you.
Yes. A patio cover attached to the house needs a building permit from the City of San Diego, and your HOA's architectural committee reviews it as well. We handle both.
Within the City's brush management zones, with limits on structures and planting near the slope. We check the zone boundaries on your lot before we design the hardscape and the fire feature.
Three to six months from the first visit to completion, longer if a pool is part of the project.
The short answer is yes. Official, permitted improvements to your home, inside and out, add a percentage of the project cost to its value, and the range tends to be between 12 and 15 percent. Other variables change the number, and the scope of the changes you make has the biggest influence. A deck addition can add as much as 72 percent of its building cost to the value of the home, and our rooftop deck guide puts a sky deck at 5 to 12 percent in San Diego's view neighborhoods. It is not only about value: a new or improved deck or patio adds space for entertaining, storage underneath, and the ambiance you want in the backyard.
It depends on the size and scope of the project. Because of the nearly infinite possibilities these projects have, a price without a plan is a guess. The size of the space, the improvements you want, the materials and their quality, and many other design decisions all set the cost. That is why Kaminskiy Design and Remodeling offers a complimentary in-home consultation: we want to understand your vision for the space while giving you accurate information on what your project will cost. The design and bid presentation puts every line of the scope, the contract and the schedule in writing before anything is built.
It comes down to the organization of the area. Decide on the focal points, the sitting areas, an outside kitchen, where the lawn goes and whether you want a water feature. That is difficult to do without help, and the best way to get the outdoor living space you have always wanted is a professional design-build team on your side. Your designer walks the yard with you, watches how the light and the wind move through it, and draws the plan around how you will use it: a kitchen near the door to the house, seating facing the view or the fire, a path that connects them.
If your home has a sloped yard or sits high off the ground, a deck or a platform deck is the natural choice. A deck is a platform of wood or composite that extends your living space with areas to dine, grill or simply enjoy the outdoors, and many decks step down to a patio on the flat. We make those steps safe with lights, sturdy rails and smooth, level treads, and a deck several feet off the ground can hide covered storage underneath for lawn equipment or the children's toys. We can separate the seating and socializing area from the grill and the entrance back into the house by extending the deck outward. The footings are sized to the local building code, which sets their depth and width from the deck's size and height, and a permit is pulled so the deck is legal.
Homeowners want more than grilling: the versatility to cook anything they can inside, just outside. An outdoor kitchen can have a built-in barbecue, a full-size refrigerator, a cooktop or even a brick pizza oven. The hot areas (the grill or stove), the cold areas (the refrigerator), the wet areas (the sink) and the dry areas (the counters) are kept separate yet cohesive so the kitchen works. A counter along the edge of the deck or patio gives prep and serving space; a U-shaped counter feels like a bar and lets guests socialize with the cook; an island becomes the prep or grilling center. The materials can match the house or combine into something your own, and they must be easy to clean and maintain, because they live outside. An open but covered structure over the kitchen protects guests and appliances and lets us add a fan, lighting for night cooking, speakers and a television.
Start here
Schedule your complimentary in-home design consultation for your outdoor space, anywhere in Carmel Valley.
- A designer comes to you, measures, listens and shares first ideas.
- No pressure and no obligation. We tell you if we are not the right fit.
- Our Client Care team calls back during the time slot you choose.