The sun is setting on a summer’s evening. You pour yourself a nice cuppa at the end of a busy day and head into the garden. You sit under the big green umbrella and place your drink on the wooden table top and settle into the comfortable canvas chair to listen to the birds singing ... what an ideal way to end a day, sitting on your patio.
Before you get to that stage there is a lot of hard work needed! First of all, you need to decide on where you will have your patio. The choice will often be dictated by the layout of your house and the main way that you intend to use it. For example, for entertaining, you would want the patio to be easily accessed from the house, perhaps with the French doors opening onto it. If you just intend it as a pleasant area in which to relax, you would site it in a peaceful corner of the garden. So make up your mind on this first.
Next is the design. You need to decide on the type of surface, maybe you will use real stone such as slate, maybe block paving or reclaimed York stone is your thing. A cheaper alternative is to use concrete slabs, it is amazing what the producers can do with these now, they can be made to mimic real stone at a fraction of the price. The shade needs to blend in with your garden. Darker colours will get hotter during the day and stay warmer for longer after the sun has slipped below the horizon. How will you set the slabs, in a random or regular pattern? If you are not sure which would look better, cut out scale models of the different slab sizes and set them out on the table in different ways until you are satisfied.
See Content !