Building a deck.......what are we thinking

We have a small 10 x 10 deck off our kitchen. The dogs use the deck to go down to the dog pen but as adorable as they are the little shits have destroyed the deck. They insist on using it as their own personal toilet. GRRRRRR We've lived here for about 8 years or so and have only used the deck for personal use a hand full of times. It has gone to the dogs, literally. So we have decided to rip it down and rebuild it to a 15 x 18 deck with a fenced off path to lead the dogs directly from the doggie door to the stairs leading to the dog pen. This way they will not have access to the rest of the deck and we may actually be able to entertain out there.

Wanna know how this plan started????? A jacuzzi started it all. Tom found a jacuzzi free on craigslist. It is an $8000 jacuzzi in fantastic condition so he just had to have it (not that Im complaining). He then called a jacuzzi company and had them remove it and relocate it to our house. We now have a wonderful jacuzzi sitting in the back yard waiting for a place to be set up and used. That means we now need a patio, right???? Well we cant build a patio until we figure out a way down to it (we have a raised ranch). The way down would have to be through the deck but the deck is currently unusable so thats how we got to rebuilding and reconfiguring the deck. So free jacuzzi now equals god know how much money on a 15 x 18 deck and a 15 x 20 brick patio. We should be done just in time for winter............anyone up for a snowy dip in the jacuzzi?

I will keep you all updated on the progress. Today we are ordering the lumber. As soon as that arrives we'll start demolition of the current deck.  Pics to follow!!!!