Back Patio Concrete

We finally had a stretch of days without rain. This has given us an opportunity to start on one of the projects for the back yard; the back patio was left incomplete as we wanted to see what it was going to look like as a finished project before deciding on what to do.

We needed stairs per city code, so we made a temporary set of wood stairs to pass our final inspection. We left dirt under the covered area until we decided on how we were going to finish it.

This is one area of the house I’ve had a few questions on – specifically the size. We knew we wanted a covered area because we like eating outside (but we live in Oregon). Our thought was that we wanted enough room to have a BBQ area and have a table and chair set, as well as the kids table. We ended up deciding on a cover that is 20′ x 18′. A large covered area will be great, and I think this size will be plenty big for our needs. The standard size would have been much smaller.

Once we saw how the cover area looked we started thinking about what we wanted to do for under the cover. There were four options that we were deciding on – wood deck, paved patio, stamped concrete or plain concrete.

1. Wood Deck

Initially we thought we might want to do a wood deck. Our lot is flat, and the house is not built on a hill. Often times a wood deck is the easiest option if there are large elevation changes going out back, as building a concrete patio or doing pavers would need a lot of extra rock to build up the area. The downside to wood is that it takes the most maintenance, and we were thinking we wanted something that didn’t need to be refinished every summer

2. Paver Patio

There are a lot of options for pavers and they all look very different. At first, I thought this would be a great option. One downside to pavers is that it is expensive to have someone else do, but on the flip side it’s something that can be done diy if you have the time – it’s like laying down a huge puzzle. I like the look of a lot of paver patios, however we decided it wasn’t quite the look we wanted under the cover. We are planning on doing another sitting area in our yard that will most likely end up being pavers, so we thought it would be good to have a different look under the covered area.

3. Stamped Concrete Patio

We decided on stamped concrete for our front porch. With stamped concrete there are bumps and grooves in it that make it an uneven surface. Out back we are planning on having table and chairs, and we were concerned that doing stamped concrete would be an uneven surface. Our concrete guy even said that’s one thing he didn’t like about it at his house – no one wants to eat dinner at a table or chair that rock back and forth. There are options for stamps that are smoother, but all will be uneven to a certain point. Also, it would have cost about $1500 more to do the stamp and stain.

4. Plain Concrete Patio

After taking all this into consideration and talking to different people including a concrete guy and a landscaper we decided on going with plain concrete. Of all the options it is the least maintenance. It is not necessarily the least expensive as you might be able to DIY a paver patio or wood deck for less. It will provide a flat surface that will be great for furniture. Although it is not decorative like pavers, there are options to stain or paint it that we could do in the future. Another option is to use an outdoor rug to make it look more decorated.

There are a lot of decisions when building a home. With Adair Homes many of the decisions are before construction starts. The landscaping is one of the last things to be done for a new Adair home build and is not included in the Adair Homes price, so you want to make sure to include it in your budget. We still have a lot to do with our landscaping, but getting the patio done is a start.