Comparing Green Shield's Standard 4 Foot Steps and Cascading Step Styles

Green Shield designed the cascading steps to function as a "mini deck," creating a seamless transition between levels. Unlike traditional stringer stairs, this wrap-around design provides wide-set access from the garage to the upper living space. While cascading stairs require more intensive labor, they provide a structural flow that standard stairs cannot match.

For the secondary access point, our team utilized a traditional stringer build finished with side skirting for a clean, intentional look. This approach allows homeowners to invest in high-traffic custom features where they matter most while maintaining a practical, high-standard build throughout the rest of the project. By pairing these two styles, Green Shield delivers a deck that is both highly functional and intelligently designed.

One of the other cool things about this deck that's just caught my eye, is we actually have two different staircase styles here. This is one of our cascading steps. Although it's not much wider than a traditional staircase it's essentially a mini deck here so they connect the two different spaces and allows me to come out of the garage and go right up and around and onto this next space so a traditional staircase built with stringers wouldn't work as good here. This is using stringers so if you notice it's got skirting on the side is a really really nice look but it's totally different than the mini deck cascading stairs I showed you over there, but what's really  great about this is how economical this is. Those staircases take a little bit more work so they cost a little bit more. This we're able to build a little bit more economically and it fits the needs for most homeowners.