When the quotes for his mother’s restaurant terrace started at €10,000, Alex Gavrilescu decided to build it himself, with help from the AI coding assistant Codex. Alex is a software engineer whose mother runs Be Fresh , a small Vienna restaurant serving savory and açaí bowls. She wanted to cook healthy food and spend her days around people. The family was funding the business themselves, and space inside was tight. A summer terrace would give her room for more customers, but the quotes Alex obtained ran as high as €20,000. His mother had secured permission for the terrace, with requirements governing its dimensions and position. Alex gave those requirements to Codex and began exploring designs. His mother loved the first image immediately, but Alex thought the design would be too difficult for them to build. He had done small projects at home; this would be a much bigger undertaking. “I’m not a carpenter. I’m a software engineer,” he says.
Alex asked Codex to search stores around Vienna for materials they could actually buy. It found decking and wall components, then helped generate a new design using those parts. The family could compare several options at different budgets and chose one in the middle. That gave Alex a design tied to a shopping list, with quantities and places to buy the materials.
Codex gave him what he calls “IKEA style instructions,” covering how to cut the pieces and assemble the terrace. It also helped him work through a problem beneath the deck: the street was uneven. Using the measurements Alex supplied, Codex identified the need for adjustable supports and pointed him toward ones he could buy locally. Their height could be changed so the terrace would sit level over the undulating ground.
Codex also specified screws that would resist rust in the rain. Alex shopped for the materials, cut the pieces and assembled the structure, with his mother helping to hold parts when he needed another pair of hands. He says the work took five days, including the day spent shopping. His mother then painted it.
According to Alex, city inspectors approved the finished build on their first visit. He is more modest about his own workmanship: “I have the feeling Codex brought me from nothing to a 7 out of 10, which is pretty good for us.”
The terrace is permitted to seat eight people and roughly doubles the restaurant’s available space, Alex says.
