Patio advice

Moved into a new house last summer, does not have a deck or a patio or anything. Want to put something in this spring, looking for ideas. Not really sure what's out there but if you have pics of your deck or patio with good ideas, i'd love to see them. Things like hot tub, fire pit, seating, pergolas, that kind of thing. Thanks.

 

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We added on a couple years ago and I'm in the planning and brainstorming stage. Planning a treated lumber framed deck with composite decking and rounded step-down border onto rock patio. I wanna do a built in fire-pit as well as a permanent grill with natural gas line. I need to get some visual barrier shrub/trees planted first.

 

we are pretty much on the exact same page, then, cool. i've been reading some magazines looking for ideas but figured maybe some people who have already done this can give me some ideas and tips. hopefully some folks jump in here with some pictures...

 

Another person on the same page... I've been watching Yardcrashers, I'm not going all out like they do but they have little hints and tips that are helpful for the average DIYer.

Check out Aerocooper, he built an outdoor fireplace in his backyard and it came out looking nice.

 

I'm a fan of a more natural look vs concrete, etc. Irregular flagstone, pea gravel, etc. Easy to put down, it drains well, and it moves w/o cracking, regardless of joints. Plus it feels like it's more natural. I don't want it to be like my garage. For something that requires a smooth surface, some decking, engineered stone, or brick pavers are good and blend in well.

As for grills, be careful about fixed installs. A buddy did one and he's often stuck w/a face full of smoke due to prevailing wind pattern at the location. I can wheel mine around as the wind changes and I like that. Same applies for fire pits; plan for wind accordingly.

 

A good thing to do would be to buy a program that will give you a layout and you can design everything and incorporate the things you want so you can get a feel for what your getting into. You can get something like this at Office Depot, or Best Buy or places of sort.

 

The 1 thing to remember is that go as big as you can when we did our deck and back screened in porch we went as big as we could afford at the time and wish we had moved the porch to the other side and made the deck bigger.So what I'm saying things attched to your house can't be moved easley.Good luck with what ever you decide.

 

go to pinterest.com and look at what other people have built. We are getting ready/ideas for our kitchen and have gotten tons of good ideas from there

 

Going for a pergula to replace umbrellas at shallow end of my pool. Plenty if diy videos out there.

 

Post some pics of the area you want to put it in. It might give people a better idea of what will work.

 

oh yeah, great tips. thanks

 

Awesome back yard Mike!

 

This ^^^

I added a small paver patio right outside my screened porch so I could move my grill outside. When I first built it, I thought...oh I only need something big enough for the grill 6'X10'. Now I'm planning on bumping that patio all the way out to the corner of the house making it 24'X10' Then I'm gonna put french doors walking out onto the patio from the Master bedroom (Double window pictured) with a pergola over top.

 

I have a friend that does concrete sculptures that looks like boulders for landscaping. He makes them for sheds, pools etc.

You can check out his work here:
http://www.hendersonarts.net/

 

I just put in a 300sqft patio in the back yard. Dug down two feet, packed in a foot of crushed stone, then sand, then blocks, and ran a packer over top with plywood down. Swept in some poly sand in the cracks and wet the whole thing down for a couple days. It came out great and will last forever.

 

A foot?! Wow, Makes me glad I don't have to worry about frost heaving down here. I only did about 4-6" of crushed stone under mine, then sand.

 

almost done

 

Looks good. I like the pattern.