Each year at my house, my husband and I take on a large home project. We have been in our home for 4 years now. Year 1 we were slowly getting settled in. We un-packed, decorated and made it feel cozy and lived in. Year 2 we did all the landscaping around our house including planting about 2.5 acres of grass! That was quite the undertaking. This past year (year 3) we took on the patio. We chose to pave our patio and I’m so glad we spent the extra money to make it look perfect. At least, I think it’s perfect! Year 4 and current project is finishing our basement. Post will be coming with before and afters of that!
My brother-in-law (co-owner with my husband and I, and operator of Premier Hardscape) drew up our plans in his landscaping software and they turned out beautifully. He did such a great job and it was so nice to be able to see what it could look like before we made final decisions on layout and paver colors. Some of the renderings are below.
THE PROCESS
First off we needed to level and grade the whole area. You need to grade a patio at a slight angle away from your house so water has some place to travel to. Speaking of water, we have a water drain right next to the patio doors that needed to be directed further away from our house. We planned this ahead of time and built a PVC tunnel under the patio so the rain would deposit out into the yard. After weeks of grading and leveling we were ready for crushed stone.
We brought in so much stone because our backyard was very uneven. Weeks of layering stone, following the grade and compacting sand we were ready to start laying the pattern. I was so excited for this! EEEK!
We picked out the Lamont Pavers from Rochester Concrete. We loved the different sized pavers and the texture of the bricks. I fell in love with all the variety of colors offered and the rough look of the pavers. There are 5 different colors available in 4 different sizes ranging from 4×8 up to 12×8. With this style of pavers you could also choose to get a circle kit as an inlay. The website also gives you ideas and patterns to follow along with a lot of images, which really helped us. We couldn’t decide between the Antique Brown and Beechwood, so we got both! The color variant in each grouping is so beautiful. (Rights to the below images belongs to Rochester Concrete Products.)
We followed the below pattern for our patio and decided on a square inlay right underneath our pergola. We used the Beechwood pavers in 2 ways; as the border for the whole patio as well as the inlay and mixed in with the Antique Brown pavers.
The pergola was built last summer before the patio was even a thought. We knew we wanted some sort of shade outside since the sun goes lengthwise over our house leaving the patio in complete sun all day. My husband built it with his brother and I love how it turned out. We chose a simple pattern with intersecting boards to create some visual interest. We chose to use cedar to match our deck and stained it the same color to tie it in.
We have a rock retaining wall that makes a slight curve away from our house. We knew we wanted to have a fire pit close by and this curve made the perfect spot for it. We created a 18ft diameter raised fire pit landing right in the curved area. We raised it up on cinderblocks to really separate the spaces. After lining the edge of the circle we inlayed the same pavers as the rest of the patio, in a different direction. I absolutely love how this turned out. We added the metal fire ring at a later time which required us to cut out the bricks, dig it down and drill holes to vent it.
We planned on having flower beds all around the patio and I still have a long way to go with planting. As far as plants go I have bought nothing but mosquito repellant plants. Catnip, mint, basil, lavender, marigolds and citronella. All of which require full sun and full sun they get! Added bonus is that the ones I actually put into the ground are perennials. I planted the marigold, basil and mint in planters.
I love the designated exits around the beds with the nice curved edges. There is a level of finesse with the soft edges and curved shapes we created. 
This whole process took some time because my brother-in-law was working on other projects at the same time. He would come over on the weekends to help us out but we were in no rush. A couple weeks ago we finally called it done! I’m so in love with this space and cannot wait to string up some lights, add some patio furniture and have a fire.
Thank you all so much for reading. Until next time,
