How to Plan and Build a Patio

A patio enhances the usefulness of a garden by providing a dry-foot area all year round, where you can go into the garden without walking on damp or soggy grass. If next to the house adjoining patio doors it feels like an outdoor extension of the house, a flat dining, seating and play area that greatly extends the seasons that you can use the garden as an extra living space.

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Planning the patio

    Choose the slabs or bricks you will use to build your patio to harmonise with the bricks of your house, the eye naturally connects the two, being similar sorts of surface. Dark colours are less reflective and therefore don't give so much glare, which can be very strong in the full summer sun. A darker coloured slab will also feel warmer than a lighter one, and will retain - and radiate heat well into the evening after the sun has disappeared.

I recall seeing a path once that someone had laid covered in white gravel, as it was in a sunny position, on a bright sunny day it was painful to look at.

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