Yard Built for Hanging Out

Materials: Lumber; Exterior Door; Stone; Gravel; Concrete; Landscape Lighting; Pavers; Wall Block; Fire Pit; Soil; and Seed.

Creating Patio Space for Friends

How do you create an outdoor space to accommodate five people just as comfortably as 30? (Yes, and everything in-between!)

Challenge accepted!

All the Open Space We Needed

In addition to creating lots of seating, we needed to keep the grill close to the back door, and also open the master bedroom to the backyard for a truly open space. Thankfully, this Burbage Grant home had a large, open backyard with as much space as we needed. Our clients decided on three elements to the space: two reasonably sized decks, a fire pit area, and a dinning area.

We laid out the two decks with wide, low stairs- perfect for seating! The small deck was designed for a couple chairs to fit just right so they could start the morning right – relaxing with a cup of coffee. The second deck was built with a special bump out to support the grill, and enough space for an upper seating area. The patio was divided into a fire pit area incorporating a long seating wall and a second area for an outdoor dining set.

With the layout set and building permits approved, we got right to work! The sliding door from the master bedroom came first. We ended up finding minor rot while installing the door, but were able to quickly handle it though. With the rot repaired, we installed our flashing and then laid out the frame work for the decks.

Maximizing the Space

To maximize the space and keep the budget in mind, we gave our concrete plenty of curves, reducing the maximum square footage required. We also incorporated massive 30″ Eagle Bay Chatham XL pavers as stepping stones to transition between the master bedroom deck stair and the patio.

While coming down the home stretch on the decks, we worked on the form boards for the stamped concrete patio. The concrete was then poured and stamped with a flagstone pattern, which we carved and painted to appear as large separate flagstones. The concrete was then sealed with a two-part epoxy sealant to protect the color and soften the feel while underfoot.

Plenty of Seating

With the concrete finished, we then laid out our fire pit. The concrete curves had been laid out to fit the Eagle Bay Highland Stone Fire Pit perfectly. We also installed our base for the seating wall from clean, compacted #57 stone with a geotextile fabric to keep the stone clean. Base completed, the Eagle Bay Highland Freestanding wall went in perfectly, adding plenty of organic seating to this side of the patio.

Let’s Make it a Party!

We finished out the party space with low-voltage landscape lighting. We installed lights in the stone seating wall, a few path lights between the decks along the path, and finally a bunch of lights in the deck for ambient lighting. We rounded the whole system out with a low-voltage transformer with a WiFi enabled module allowing the LED lights to be controlled from our homeowners cell phone anywhere in the world.

Making it Happen

We were able to make everything happen here for just shy of $27,000. Plenty of space for seating on the deck steps and wall, perfect place for a dining set, fire pit ready for s’mores, and (of course) beautiful landscape lighting making this space usable deep into the evening!