A paver patio, a seat wall, and the water sent somewhere sensible

A patio is the cheapest way to double the space you actually use outside. It is also the quickest way to make a drainage problem worse, if whoever lays it treats the ground underneath as somebody else’s job.

We look at the water before we look at the pattern

Before anything is priced we walk the property and work out where the water is coming from and where it currently ends up. On most lots around Wake Forest that means roof water, a slope towards the house, and a low corner of lawn that never quite dries out. A patio dropped on top of that without a plan simply moves the puddle.

Where the ground needs it we put in a French drain and tie it into the fall of the paving, so the surface sheds cleanly and the water leaves in a pipe rather than across the grass.

The base is the part you never see

Everything is set on a compacted aggregate base built for the load it is going to carry. That is the part that decides whether a patio is still flat in ten years, and it is the part that is easiest to skip. Pavers themselves resist cracking and shifting, and if a service ever has to come through them they can be lifted and reset rather than broken out.

Then the parts you do see

Seat walls, a border course in a contrasting colour, steps up to a deck, a fire pit set into the middle. Brick, natural stone and concrete pavers all come in a range of colours, textures and patterns, and permeable options let the water through the surface instead of sending it down the lawn.

Every wall and patio we build is designed by an NC State engineering graduate, which is the short version of why we spend so much of the quote on the parts nobody photographs.