Demo Day - New Outdoor Patio

We built our home 11 years ago.  The house came with a deck which we made a little larger within the first year we lived here.  After two years we added a paver patio.  Five years ago we built a pool.

Pool as it was being built

Here is a good view of the deck, the patio and the pool area

All seems good, right???  As it turns out...not so much.  When it was just the deck and the patio both were used all the time.  When we built the pool, the only area that seems to be used is the pool area.  The bar-b-que is up on the deck and when my husband cooks he is completely blocked off from everyone else.  The patio became just a walk through.  Not to mention that the deck and patio have very angular shapes and the pool is all curves.  It looked like they were built at different times (which they were...but who wants it to look that way).  There were two final straws that made out decision to make a major change - one was the deck needs to be replaced.  We looked into Trek Deck and products like it...I was shocked at how expensive it was and in the end we would be left with the same non-cohesive space.  Second - the patio had sunk over time and every time it rains, the patio fills up like a pool which causes weeds and moss to grow all over the place and also causes the patio to sink more and more.  So...we went back to the drawing board.

Overall view

Close up view

So here is the new design.  This design removes the existing deck and the patio and incorporates them into one cohesive space.  There will be a new outdoor kitchen (which has been tweaked and is shaped differently than shown above) as well as a firepit (instead of the fireplace shown).

Before of patio and deck

Before - view from pool 

Before patio and deck

So these are some of the before pictures.  The demo trucks are in my driveway and the workers have started removing the old pavers (which will be used at the foot of my driveway and elsewhere...no way could I let all that go to waste).







My advice to anyone out there designing a backyard...invest in a landscape architect to design the entire backyard.  Then you can do projects in phases.  Had we done that, we probably wouldn't be ripping out a deck and patio right now.

















As you can see this is going to be an exciting project.  I will keep you all updated on the progress.

-Judy