Patio Time!

Patio time is my favorite time! : )

We don't have much of a back yard, since our garage and driveway are IN our back yard.  And when we bought the house there was no outdoor entertaining space to speak of.  No deck, no patio.  Just a large concrete walk between the house and the driveway, which wasn't really big enough to act as patio space.

Here is a plan of the existing conditions of our back yard:
(green is lawn)

 

 

And here are some before pictures for reference

 

 

 

So this winter I got to work designing us a new back yard. : )  I have been designing other people's patios for about a decade now, and it is so awesome to finally be designing our own!  I was so excited when I got my hands on the computerized version of our site survey!

Granted there wasn't too much "designing" to do since the shape and size of the patio space was primarily dictated by the location of the house, garage and driveway, but I could still make some variations.

 

Here is a plan of the plan!!!! : )
(Brown is Brick, Gray is Bluestone, Dark Green is Planting Beds and Light Green is Lawn)

 

Hopefully the quality is ok, I have not found my scanner since we moved so I took a picture with my phone! ha!

 

We decided on a eating patio tucked between the house and garage since it is the most private location on our very unprivate lot AND that is where the gas line is for the grill. A nice new wide walk where the concrete was and another patio space on the other side. I figure this one can be more of a living/lounge space, or be areas for additional tables for larger gatherings. I also wanted to widen the driveway. As you can see from the before plan, the driveway is not perpendicular to the garage, so when we do the patio, I want to widen the driveway a bit so it comes perpendicular from the garage all the way to the street, which you can see in the proposed plan.

 

Here is the before picture again with some notes of what we need to do.

 

 

We weren't sure if we were going to install the entire plan at once, or just do part of it, but our main contractors at work gave us an amazing deal so we were able to install the entire thing!

Next up was choosing the materials.  Even though my heart swoons for bluestone, I figured we would do concrete pavers since that is more affordable than stone.  But the contractors said if there was extra materials in the yard left over from other jobs we could have it.  And there just so happened to be a few pallets of pretty pretty brick!  Then it got even better...my boss offered to buy us bluestone for whatever sq.ft. the brick wouldn't cover as my spring bonus!  It is good to be in the business!!!!  So brick and bluestone it is!!! A lovely classic combo which I think works well with our older white cape cod.

And do you know what the most exciting part about all of this is???? They already started!!!!!!! YAY! In progress pictures to be posted soon!  Stay tuned!