You can create your dream backyard with pavingstones and wallstones by Cambridge with Armortec. You can start with a beautiful pavingstone patio, and then add outdoor living kits, like a fire pit or outdoor kitchen to make your backyard the ideal place for entertaining. Please go to our website and visit the magnificent photos in our electronic brochure and our gallery. By linking to Cambridge’s Designscape Visualizer you can upload your photograph and preview what your re-designed home will look like using Cambridge Pavingstones and Wallstones. Visit our website at http://www.cambridgepavers.com.

We're working on our 40 ft x 30 ft backyard this year. Don't have any 'after' pics to post yet, but after hours of talking and pricing we decided on creating four zones. Each area was given roughly one corner of the space, but the edges of the hardscape areas are rounded and soft, not angular. Paths between the 'zones' are large flat grey stones.

1. Bar-b-q / round umbrella table & chairs. We're using flat, reclaimed brick. Fortunately our yard, like yours, is flat. We rented a sod cutter for one day from 'Home Depot' ($100) to cut-out this area and the fire pit area. Covered and packed sand and used a layer of gravel.
2. Fire bowl & lounge chairs. We laid, large, flat grey stones for a 12' diameter flat stone circle. Two skids of rocks (total $1,000) did the fire pit area, pathways between the 'zones' and a pathway from the curb to the door (just to unify the spaces). We purchased a round iron fire bowl to place in the center. For this year, we're using our six coloured vinyl adirondack chairs. Hope to purchase new chairs next year.
3. The shady corner is for the hammock. We don't have the ideal trees for accommodating a hammock. We bought 2 - 4" x 4" posts, dug holes, leveled the posts, and filled the hole with quick crete. Then we added some wood molding on the posts (for visual interest), and stained them to coordinate with the fence.

4. The fourth corner is raised boxes for vegetables. We cut away the sod for 4 ft x 6 ft boxes, laid down landscaping fabric, and built the boxes with 2" x 6" cedar boards. We were able to procure some great growing soil from a farmer.

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Flowers:

* We're using all perennials.

* Hostas, ferns, rhodedenrum, and hydrangea in part sun to full shade.

* Lemon grasses (which have grown 4 ft high in one season) and 'mosquito plants' on the parameters of the fire area to repel mosquitos in the evening.

* In a sunny area, we have day lilies, daisies and clematis.

* For this first year of vegetables, we've done the easiest plants: tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, and oregano. We bought established plants at 'Home Depot'. We did not start the plants from seed.

* We planted clematis to grow up the hammock poles. Not working so well. LOL !

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For hardscape, I think your idea to use poured, coloured concrete sounds great. Just do your 'homework' to compare (1.) price per sq. ft. for ground prep, materials and installation [if you're not DIY-ing]; (2.) maintenance; (3.) longevity; (4.) affect (i.e. slippery / hazard) in rain and snow.

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Here are the 'Houzz' pictures that have provided our general inspiration:

Vegetable Boxes:

Hammock (only hung from posts):

We're using reclaimed flat red bricks for the bar-b-q with table and chairs:

Our fire area is flat grey stones in a 12 ft diameter circle, a purchased fire bowl, and we're using our current lounge chairs.

We like the look of 'zones' and connecting them with dry stones that are fully immersed in the ground so that we can mow over these areas:

Hope some of these thoughts are helpful to you. Highly recommend that you find some inspiration photos; draw your space to scale on graph paper; check and double check your budget (and labor if hiring-out the work); and do not try to do it all in one year ;-) Have learned that the hard way.

Best of luck!!

All the idea's here are great, I am just starting to install a back yard garden, I know it will take 2-3 years to do it right. I am using all white bloom plant species. A White blooming garden is very beautiful, I live in the South in the USA, so easy to find many really good species. The one thing you really should do if you live in the Southern Region is a screened porch, it only needs to be big enough to put a table that sits enough chairs and a table for your family, you will use it many months out of the year, shade is paramount. If not a screened in porch at least do a trellis over your outdoor table. Here on Houzz under the outdoor tab, you will find thousands of ideas, and if you Google outdoor patios, another site will open up with many pages of color pictures of patios.

Good luck, and Remember anything worth doing is worth doing well!

Thanks and Happy Gardening!

Well, at least you are starting with a nice flat area!

It's hard to determine what is north, south, east or west in your pictures. It would appear there is only one area of shade, with the large trees.

When we moved into this house over 20 years ago, we had a pre-built patio (large concrete slabs) right behind the house, accessible from our family room. There were 2 large trees (one a very large maple we still have), but neither of them shaded the patio during the long heat of the middle of the day. The back of the house faces east, and once the sun rises the patio area gets direct sun until the house shadow starts to creep and shade the patio, not reaching full shade until about 4-5 pm.

The reason I say this is because the only way we will ever get shade on the patio is 1) the large umbrella we currently have for the patio table, or 2) we will have to build and attach either a pergola or shade sail to the house, requiring something to attach it to away from the house. The pergola would of course be permanent and expensive, the shade sails less so, but still requiring something to anchor to away from the house.

This makes our patio a less than perfect place in the full summer months, which we are in right now. While nice and flat, it's hot until later in the day/early evening. We can entertain a few people at the table with some shade from the umbrella, but that's it.

I only mention all this because it's something to consider when you want a permanent patio to use year round, or depending on your area, about 9 months.

As to things we've actually done in the yard and things I would like to do:

We built a tree ring around the large maple and filled it with soil and this year planted hostas. The top is flat and can be sat upon, and it's almost always shady there.

I've always liked the idea of brick "seats" around an edge of a patio, like these, which we may do when we do the "big job" of permanent shade over the patio:

http://www.houzz.com/photos/query/brick-seat-wall

It creates extra "seating" should the crowd exceed your chairs.

We also did a fire pit from pavers.

Your idea is fine but I simply wanted to alert you to the shade issue which is something most people don't consider when deciding on a patio.

Good luck with your plans and enjoy it once it's done!

The "creation of zones" and multi-use areas comments are good here.

I encourage mowtownmom and others who might suggest building a soil-filled tree ring around existing or mature trees to read the following which explains issues with that suggestion. Scroll down the page to #3 and the photos of three ring-surrounded trees. I'm just pasting the first reference via google that I found, though there are plenty of other sites that will explain the danger that filled tree rings pose both in the short and long-term to tree health/survival. http://www.wakeforestnc.gov/data/sites/1/media/urban%20forestry/top_10_ways_to_kill_a_tree.pdf

Perhaps the same addendum seating could be achieved with a raised circular bench, so that the tree flare can breathe easily again. http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/step/0,,20395892,00.html

Finally, depending upon where you live and your soil types - it is heavy clay conditions here in SE WI - I suggest you consider, as most have prior to my comment, pavers of either stone or brick set in well-tamped gravel and a bit of sand instead of stamped concrete which, in north country where heave-thaw is a reliable entity, can and does move with the seasons unless done with meticulous base-making. Permeability of brick and stone is a real plus in this age when we have so many impermeable surfaces that contribute to flooding and runoff. I find stamped concrete slippery when wet too, so am not of a mind to recommend it.

I agree with the suggestion of the 1st responder re: using paving stones. I did that 3 yrs ago in my own large back yard when installing long winding pathways & a large patio. I also love natural flagstone, too.My home is Tudor style clad in brick & stucco; So I chose a cobble stone style paver edged & accented with areas of Brick. We used Brick that matches that on the front of the house, fireplace, walks, etc.. also used the retaining wall stones/blocks on a low round raised Rose garden, that's the center of one patio. The Brick was essential in tying it altogether & making it flow. Consider the possibility of repeating some materials, colors, etc.. of existing elements of your home or property in the new patio space.
I like pavers, brick, stone etc in the "Sand Bed" method because future changes &or/ repairs can be made more easily. Personally, I'd prefer not to use poured concrete anymore. Ensure the Stones, Pavers &/or Brick are laid in a properly prepped "Sand Base." The basic steps of Prep are; Excavating abt 8" of soil, putting in a layer of "base rock" compacting, then the layer of sand, compacting again, leveling, compacting, etc.. This was per my recall, I'm not an installer, so I may be leaving things out. We actually ended up compacting 4-6 times, d/t site specific conditions that required extra prep work. IE; Poorly drained very soggy soil, needing new french drains installed, & large tree roots removed.

I also agree that using pavers rather than stamped concrete is a better idea. We used pavers (Cambridge with Armortec, as it happens) around our pool last year. Our original thought had been stamped concrete, but our pool designer/builder pointed out that stamped concrete was a slip hazard when wet and, the clincher for us, that if there was ever a problem with anything under the pool deck/patio area (electrical wiring, plumbing lines, etc.) if we had concrete, it would have to be jackhammered up and repoured. The repour would not match well. With pavers, you just lift the pavers in the area, proceed with the repair, and re-lay the pavers. It was an easy decision for us after hearing that.

We had a slight problem this year with gutter overflow that washed out the soil from under the pavers where they met the deck stairs. My husband and daughter repaired the sunken pavers (after they gutters were cleaned) themselves, repairing the rock base, sand base, re-laying the same pavers, and adding new polymer grout. Looks great! You'd never know they'd sunk in completely. Concrete would have broken completely off!

Like others have said, pavers are great. We have 1,500 square feet of them and are planning to add more to replace pool deck and around new fireplace.

Stamped concrete would look great but definitely towards the higher end in terms of cost, one thing you may want to consider which gives a consistent surface but adds depth and interest is a mortar set flagstone patio. As compared to a sand set flagstone patio a mortar set patio is more permanent and definitely less maintenance as sand washes away, weathers and requires replacement every year or two. One thing to also keep in mind if you are looking to go with a stamped concrete patio is access, the farther you are from the street and truck access the more the cost will go up for the install, this is true for other patio types as well but definitely true for concrete patios. Pavers are a great choice as well, we do many paver installs and some flagstone patios as well, we focus heavily on modern design so pavers is the better choice over flagstone to achieve the look we strive to provide. We would also suggest providing some kind of screening as well, if you are going to the trouble and cost and use the area quite a bit some screening from the alleyway would aid in the experience of making the space more comforting and intimate. Screening can be achieved in a variety of ways from fencing, to landscaping (mainly trees), also a combination of trellises with plantings trained to adhere to them and provide filtering and directing views into the area once it is finished.

@libratravel - did the $14/sqft include installation or just for material?

Wow! Thank you everyone! A lot of great advice.
I just wanted to answer a few questions and add a few comments ( the ones that I remember)
• My yard is not big enough to have the patio in sections. So, that area should be more than enough for our needs.

• For some reason in my area, SE WI, the quotes that I got for pavers were way more expensive than the stamped concrete, I think I got a great deal at $8.00 per sq ft. ( I do business with this guys ) ;)

• Privacy and Shade, I have that considered in my project, landscaping would be phase 2 of the project, I plan on planting a Ceder hedge in the back by the alleyway and around the parking slab, and by my neighbor's yard. Here in MKE there this a program called, greening MKE, end they provide free trees to home owners, I have requested one, that I plan to plant it so that it shades the patio in the mid hours of the day when it grows, The large trees in the back provide shade in the patio area as early as 1-2 pm and for the rest of the day during the summer days. So one on the opposite side should be more than enough, I'm thinking either an Ash white or a Maple.
Great advice/info on the tree ring.

That $14 sq foot for was everything. Border was $2/ft

Be sure to keep some green space.

Paving stones ( that come in a myriad of sizes and styles and colors) would enable you to do the work yourself -- so cheaper -- and let you change your mind if you are dissatisfied with your first effort.

You'd dig out the sod in the area where you'd be putting the stones and put a thick layer of sand that will be beneath the stones and, after the stones are placed, add sand between them. This would let your yard drain and enable you to make curved spaces. You could even decide to let the grass grow between the stones. There are soft bound books (magazines sized) at the big box building supply stores that can give you detailed instructions on how to proceed and give you some ideas as to design well.

What you build should reflect how you intend to use it. A raised flower bed made with the same stone could serve to define the patio area, separate it from the rest of the yard and even provide seating for guests.

Be sure you know where any plumbing or wiring is buried before you begin your project.

Good lord, that's a lot of firewood. Sorry, but I can't get past that pile. And you have it stacked beneath the eave, which is the worst place for firewood. Please consider moving it! I just took a class on FireWire landscaping and the photo they showed as the worst landscape practice was firewood stacked under an eave.

When doing stamped concrete cost comparison you have to account for future maintenance, in order for stamped concrete to stay looking good a sealer has to be applied every 2 year at least, at a cost of about $1.00 per square foot in couple of season your initial savings will be gone, also concrete will crack at some point for sure is just matter of time, we know this cause we also offer this service to our customers but are up front with them

Paver stones for a patio are your best bet if your other option is concrete. Pavers can withstand more weight, extreme temperatures, and rarely need fixing. The highly customizable designs or color options available are the best option to get exactly what you want.

Also, I've noticed the firewood available. A fire pit would be such a fun addition to your new patio. Great for gatherings or keeping warm in the cool weather. There are many dealers available for patio pavers, so check them out online or here on Houzz!