How about this idea?
Posted by: guideboatguy
on Nov-28-12 1:09 AM (EST)
I don't know if this idea fits with your notion of aesthetics (or perhaps more important, those of your spouse), but at the cabin where my dad and his wife lived the last 15 years or so, he put interlocking sheets of metal roofing right under the deck. They were slightly sloped so rain that came through the deck ran off to one side, just like with a "real roof". You can't see it from above, but from underneath it definitely looks like a hillbilly solution to a storage problem. It's very cheap, easy and effective though.