Latest News — Custom Patio Design

A Patio Designed to Match the Style of it's Home 0

I posted in "How to Successfully Design a Paver Patio" that a good design will integrate your patio ideas into pleasing geometry that compliments the architecture of your home.  With help from the customer, we were able to accomplish exactly that in the patio design for this French styled home.

When I first looked at this home, and probably you too, the first items that jumped at me were there are a lot of large rectangular windows, rectangular rooms, and accents as well as the arched brow window in this home.  So, I knew immediately these unique features should influence the patio design.

After a brief discussion with the customer, we were able to compile a list of goals and ideas for a patio design. The first and most important item on their list was, they wanted a large patio for entertaining and they wanted it to be functional for family use as well. The second item was a fire pit area that could easily be converted to an outdoor dining area. And their last request was they wanted a patio that complimented their French styled home.

Initially, the plan was to use all rectangular and right angle geometry in the design, but the large arched window brow above the second floor balcony entrance kept grabbing my attention.  So we incorporated a large arched, paved area for the patio table and outdoor dining into the patio design.

To gain some contrasting interest throughout the entire patio, we used a totally different style of paver to create some rectangular insets for the dining, bbq grill and fire pit areas.  We also framed the entire patio using the same contrasting paver as an inside border.

To compliment the dining area, we designed a grill station with an attached bar for ease of entertaining. These are one of the most functional hardscape accessories you can add to your list of ideas for a patio. They not only provide an area for food preparation, but more importantly, it provides your guests with comfortable seating while you are grilling.

We came up with several fire pit area designs, but to keep it fun, simple and functional, we settled on this design.  A square patio fire pit area with a seat wall for overflow seating and a fire pit that converts to a table.  Perfect!

The customer also wanted us to create a patio design for a hot tub. Being the hot tub was existing, we had to design the patio around it.  Not to shabby for an after thought!

To reflect more of the home style, we also added some formal landscaping around the patio.

Okay. Now you have a good idea of how to use some unique qualities in your home's architecture to influence your patio design. Now, Get Designing!

Learn more how we can help you turn your patio ideas into a functional design on our Custom Patio Designing page.

Curvy Terraced Patio Design Creates Fabulous Outdoor Living Space 0

A curvy patio is just one of those items that is really fun to design, especially if it is a terraced patio.  Kind of like when you were younger, and you would sit and draw all kinds of curves, blending them to see what cool ideas and designs you could come with.  This paver patio reminded me of that, but the unique quality is it actually created some really functional outdoor living spaces, which is why we have included it in one of our favorite patio ideas.

Not only does this paver patio have lots of curves, but it is also tiered and raised to follow the grade.  And all of these curves create steps leading to all the different outdoor living areas of this patio.

A couple of ideas I want to point out about this design is we used rounded boulders to retain the lower section of this patio.  Also, we used flat stone, or outcropping, for steps leading from the patio to the lower walkout basement.  Both of these ideas were perfect to add to the rustic appeal of this log cabin.

The outdoor dining area was placed on the upper level of this tiered patio for easy access and includes a  grill station for a slide-in barbecue grill.  This area is also enclosed with a seating wall that provides safety.

The second level includes a nice outdoor bar for entertaining....

and a 12' x 16' cedar pergola. Notice how we wrapped the column posts of the pergola with Allan Block columns.

A fire pit area creates the third level and was designed large enough to include chairs surrounding the built-in fire pit.  Also, included in this area is a seating wall that frames in the fire pit area and provides additional seating.

The 4th and final level of this raised paver patio was designed as a hot tub area as well as an apron to step off the patio.

Material used for this patio:

• Pavers = Reading Rock Oxford Non-tumbled, Harvest Blend
• Seating Walls, Bar and Grill Station = Allan Block Old Country Courtyard Block, Stonecreek Blend
• Fire Pit = Reading Rock Bedford Radius Block, Buff/Pewter Blend
• Retaining Wall Block (used to raise patio and steps) = Allan Block Europa Block, Stonecreek Blend

Learn more how we can design an outdoor living space for you on our Custom Patio Designing page.

Patio Design for Sloping Backyard in West Chester, OH 0

If you are one of the many homeowners that has a sloping backyard, but want a nice outdoor space to relax and unwind, this patio has some pretty cool ideas that may help you out.

Before I get carried away telling you about all the fun stuff, I want to get a little technical. Designing a patio for a slope is really no different than designing one for a flat yard.  The only real difference, is the patio for a slope uses a retaining wall to make it level.  So when calculating a budget for your patio, add some money for the cost of the wall.

Now for the fun stuff! This patio was a custom patio we designed for a customer in West Chester, OH.  Fortunately for me, it was right down the road and I was able to whip down there, take a few photos and pull some measurements pretty quickly.

I met with the homeowner and his wife, who were super nice and awesome to work with, and they began to tell me what they wanted.  A 400-500 square foot curvy patio with enough space for their existing table, a fire pit area and a grand set of entrance steps.

The homeowners were pretty specific about wanting to be wowed by the entrance steps and sent me several pictures of step ideas they liked.  We slipped on our creative hat and designed this set of arced, stone steps using Allan Block Europa (tumbled) block.

We added a stone seating wall around the outdoor dining area using Allan Block Old Country Courtyard block.  Perfect for additional seating and a protective barrier from accidentally falling off raised section of patio.

Here's a closer look at the fire pit area we designed.  By using a portable fire pit instead of a built-in fire pit, this area can be used for other purposes.

To get more information on how we can help you bring your patio ideas to life, visit our Custom Designing page.

Terraced Patio Design with Swimming Pool in Austin, Texas 0

I love to design backyard getaways. Let's face it, patios with swimming pools, hot tubs, outdoor bars, ones with all the amenities are not only fun to look at, but they are great to dream about and pull ideas from.  This patio design was for a customer building a new home on 50 acres in Austin, Texas, so we basically working with a blank slate.

The customer had two stipulations as far as the design.  They wanted a terraced patio with the swimming pool on the lower terrace accessible from the walkout basement and the dining and outdoor bar on the upper terrace which could be accessed from the main living area.  The other stipulation was they wanted the pool patio to be raised 16" - 18" from ground level.

Other than those two items, they gave us complete freedom to design a patio that was beautiful, functional and one that would bring out the "oohs and aahs" from their Texas friends.

We felt the shape of their patio should have lots of arcs and curves since they were installing a curvy swimming pool, but we wanted to add some unique features to the geometry. So we created two overlapping circles. One centered around the hot tub that created the shape for a section of the retaining wall and two paved steps leading off the hot tub patio. The other centered around the upper dining area that created the shapes for the lower tiered retaining wall, the paved stairwell, the dining area itself and two steps leading up to the outdoor bar. The result was subtle, but it created some interesting arcs and lines on the patio.

We also skewed the pool and designed the pool patio to be large enough to add plenty of furniture for entertaining.

We struggled a little bit when we go to the hot tub patio. The problem was we had this 7' plus tall retaining wall that was way overbearing for this area. So as you can see we bumped out a lower section of the retaining wall creating a seating wall around the hot tub. The other step we took to reduce some of the wall height was we raised the hot tub patio 16" and added stone to the face of the pool wall, which also gave us a pretty cool effect to the pool.

The paved spiral steps leading between the two terraced patios generated a softer staircase and added a little more interest to the the large patio. Also notice how we used a darker paver to contrast the lighter retaining wall block. Trust me when I say this, it's all the little ideas that make a patio look fantastic. And larger patios need more little ideas.

The dining area was designed into the upper terrace to make access to the main floor kitchen area more convenient. We also placed it right up against the retaining wall overlooking the pool patio.

A backyard getaway would not be complete without an outdoor bar and not just any bar, but a covered bar. The bar features an octagon shape, stone face, granite countertops, drop in grill, outdoor refrigerator and lots of seating for guests.

This was just one of those projects that was enjoyable to design. We hope we were able to provide some good patio ideas for your terraced patio with swimming pool.

Visit our Custom Designing page to find out more how we can help you bring your patio ideas to life.