

Outdoor living · Encinitas
Encinitas 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 Encinitas
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.
Leucadia, Old Encinitas, Olivenhain and New Encinitas each have their own character, from surf cottages to ranch homes on big lots, and each is a place we have built. Permits for outdoor living spaces in Encinitas are issued by the City of Encinitas. 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. Parts of Encinitas sit in the coastal zone, which adds a coastal development review to some projects; we plan for it from the first meeting.
Start with a complimentary consultationOutdoor living in Encinitas
Outdoor living in Encinitas: built for salt air and the evening after the fog.
Our Encinitas outdoor fireplace in the gallery is the most common wish here: a place to sit outside once the marine layer burns off. Covered patios, outdoor kitchens and fire features built from materials that shrug off salt air near the coast, and in Olivenhain the room for a pool, a pool house and a view of the hills.
Encinitas evenings are cool and damp more often than inland, so a fire feature or an outdoor fireplace is what turns a patio into a room. Gas or wood, built into a covered patio with lighting and heaters, it is the project we are asked for most on the coast.
Within a mile of the water, grills, hardware and fixtures corrode. We specify marine-grade stainless for the outdoor kitchen, sealed or composite trim, and tile and stone that handle constant moisture. A mile inland the standard shifts to sun and wear.
On a bluff-top lot the City's setbacks from the bluff edge decide where hardscape and structures can go, and a patio cover or outdoor kitchen attached to the house needs a building permit from the City of Encinitas. In the coastal zone some outdoor structures need the coastal review too; we check before we draw.
Families who want the yard to work on a May evening, Olivenhain owners with the room for a pool and a pool house, and cottage owners making a small yard into a real outdoor room. The first meeting is in your yard.
Finishes are chosen at our Design Center in Rancho Bernardo, about 30 minutes off peak; the first meeting is in your yard.
Our work in Encinitas
Encinitas remodels. Real homes. Real families.
Every photo below is a Kaminskiy project in Encinitas, designed and built by our own team. Open any project for the full gallery, and follow the galleries to see hundreds more across the county.





Remodeling in Encinitas
Every service in Encinitas. One local team.
This page is about outdoor living in Encinitas. Every other Kaminskiy service has its own Encinitas page too, and the neighborhoods around Encinitas 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 Encinitas outdoor living guide
Outdoor living in Encinitas, in detail.
How an outdoor living project goes in Encinitas.
Attached to the house, matched to the roof, with a fireplace or fire feature, lighting, power and heaters. The room that gets used most on the coast.
Marine-grade stainless near the beach, gas and water from the house, a run sized to the yard.
Room for a pool, a spa and a pool house, with the fire zone's rules on structures and planting in the plan.
A City of Encinitas permit for structures and utilities, a separate pool permit, and the coastal review where it applies. Three to six months from the first visit to completion. Enclosed space becomes a room addition.
Room additions in EncinitasGood questions
Encinitas outdoor living FAQ: a few straight answers before you call.
Permits with the City of Encinitas, 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 Encinitas. 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 Encinitas are issued by the City of Encinitas. 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. Parts of Encinitas sit in the coastal zone, which adds a coastal development review to some projects; we plan for it from the first meeting.
A built fireplace or a patio cover attached to the house needs a building permit from the City of Encinitas, and in the coastal zone some outdoor structures also need the coastal review. We check your lot and handle the permits.
Marine-grade stainless for the grill and hardware, sealed or composite trim, and stone or porcelain tile. Ordinary steel and untreated wood do not last a few years from the water.
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 Encinitas.
- 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.


















