A year later than planned, but the first (and biggest step) towards our dream garden patio is complete! We had such hassle getting to this stage of the project, so I am breathing a real sigh of relief right now! Since sharing the process on my Instagram stories, I have been getting questions of how we got to this point. But before I answer those, here is how the garden looked last Monday! Amazing transformation yeah??
The Garden Patio Design
If you have the budget, a garden designer would be amazing! But we didn’t. So instead I researched loads and gathered lots of inspo on Pinterest. I turned into my mother and started watching gardening shows – pity I haven’t developed her green thumb though!😂 I even got a few garden design books from the library!
I showed you my mood board earlier this week, which gave you a rundown on how I chose an overall look for the garden. But there are lots of other things you need to consider like the layout of different areas, including where/what the planting is going to be. Also the colours and materials used, as well as the style of furniture. This is too much to go into in this blog post, but I’ve decided to break them down into little posts over the next few weeks. Stay tuned! But until then, start with choosing your top priorities for the overall look like I did here!
Choosing a Landscaper
Firstly, it’s important to realise that there is a big difference between a landscaper and a builder. A builder will come in and might do a great job building walls and laying the patio. But there’s a chance they won’t have a clue about planting. This might mean that the flowerbeds you requested might be too narrow for the type of flowers you eventually want etc. Designing is not their expertise, so unless you a pretty clear idea of what you want, perhaps it’s a better idea to hire a landscaper.
In all honesty – we didn’t hire a landscaper and it worked out perfectly. That was because I was confident enough to know what I wanted. I could say no when he came up with ideas of his own that didn’t suit what I wanted! E.g. he really wanted me to out a border of darker bricks around the patio, but I just knew it wouldn’t work (for me!)
Timing It Right!
If you are thinking of doing up your garden patio in the near future, NOW is the time to start organising it! We were incredibly lucky to get it done so quickly because he was doing another garden in the area. But every other landscaper we spoke to had a 6month waitlist!
- The first thing I would do is start looking up google reviews and recommendations on your local Facebook page. Really stalk the page, looking at photos. I even messaged people who left reviews to see if they were still happy with the patio, did they turn up on time, have you had any drainage issues etc. The best recommendation comes from someone you know. Then you can even visit the garden to make sure you are happy with their work.
- Try to have a good idea of the material you want to use before you speak to a landscaper. There were some landscapers we spoke to that refused to work with porcelain tiles. Others, would only work with pavers and materials they sourced themselves. Often you don’t have a big choice this way. However, it means if anything goes wrong, it’s entirely the responsibility of the landscaper. Even though I did have a porcelain tile picked out from a local shop, I couldn’t use it in my garden as our landscaper only works with his own brand. Thankfully, he had a paver that I was happy with.
- One thing that popped up in my research is that porcelain tiles shouldn’t be laid if there is a chance of frost in the first few weeks. The frost would damage the adhesive until it’s properly cured. If the landscaper doesn’t know that…beware!
- The same goes for laying a new lawn – it’s common to hear in Ireland not to lay a new lawn until after St. Patrick’ Day!
I wrote a blog post last year with all the questions we asked our landscaper. In the end, the landscaper last year ghosted us🙄, but the questions are all still relevant!
How Much Did This Garden Patio Cost?
The most important of all questions!😂 Much like any renovation, it depends on the size of your garden and what needs doing. But we paid €8,000 for ours. It’s a huge amount of money! About the same price as our kitchen but it was still the cheapest quote we got. (by about two grand!) They were a team of 7 people that were at our house for 2.5 days and they worked hard the entire time! The cost also included every single bit of the materials used, including the pavers! I live in Cork, Ireland, so maybe the price would be cheaper/more expensive where you live! Please feel free to comment below if you want to share the area where you live and how much your garden cost. It would be so interesting to compare!
If they need to work with old walls or materials in the garden, or maybe fix drainage issues, that will drive the price up a bit. If you look at the before photos, you will see that we removed a section of the garden that was jutting into the patio. This almost took them an entire day, because the bricks needed to be removed carefully so that the wall could be rebuilt! There was also a drain in this section that needed to be removed.
We got quotes from a lot of landscapers over the past year and I’ve noticed that using porcelain tiles for the patio adds a couple of thousand to the cost. This is because it takes much longer to lay and grout porcelain in comparison to the concrete pavers that we used.
Material Info
Pavers we used: We chose Kilsaran Newgrange flag pavers. Colour: Silver Granite. Size: 600x400mm
Step: The landscaper used real silver granite for the risers on both steps. Don’t forget to thoughtful about how your pavers will look when the edge is exposed!
Gravel: Silver limestone, but we will soon add white to it, to brighten it up. (A little is-communication with the landscaper, but it’s an easy fix!
You can see in the pictures that there is a lot of sand still on the pavers. We were told to leave it like this until it rains. This makes the sand get into every little crack. The landscaper has left a few more bags of sand for us to brush onto the pavers over the next few weeks.
All in all, we are thrilled with it! The view out our sliding door is worth every penny and I’ve noticed that it has even made the kitchen look brighter as the the light seems to be bouncing off the tiles! So, so happy! Planting will be the next big job and I’m absolutely clueless!! So if you have any suggestions, let me know here!!