Custom patios

The Patio That Anchors Your
Whole Backyard

Paver patios, bluestone terraces and natural stone gathering spaces. Built to handle real entertaining and look right ten years from now.

Call (860) 200-3506

Why the patio matters more than anything else

The patio is the most-used surface in any backyard. It’s where the table goes. Where the chairs go. Where the grill sits. Where everyone ends up at every gathering. If the patio is right, the rest of the backyard works. If the patio is wrong, everything else fights against it.

And “right” doesn’t just mean pretty. A patio has to do three things to actually work over the long term: it has to be big enough for how you actually use it, it has to be set on a base that won’t move when the ground freezes and thaws every winter, and it has to drain water somewhere intentional instead of just pooling in the lowest corner.

Most of the patios we end up replacing five and ten years after someone else built them failed on one of those three things.

What we build

Concrete paver patios

We use Techo-Bloc, Belgard, Unilock and Cambridge as our primary paver lines. These are commercial-grade products engineered specifically for the freeze-thaw cycles we get in Connecticut. They come in textures and colors that work with everything from modern colonials to mid-century homes to older Cape and Tudor architecture in West Hartford’s West End.

Why we use these brands and not the big-box options: paver quality is mostly about density and absorption. A cheap paver from a home improvement store absorbs water, then expands when it freezes, then cracks. Commercial-grade pavers absorb 90% less water and last decades longer. The difference shows up in year five.

Natural bluestone patios

For homes where pavers would look wrong (mostly older Cape, Tudor and Colonial Revival architecture), we use full-thickness Pennsylvania bluestone. Real bluestone, set on a proper base with sand-leveled joints, looks like it has always been there. The patina improves with age. The color shifts subtly with weather and light. It’s the right answer for a lot of West Hartford and Farmington homes where the contemporary paver look would clash with everything else.

Connecticut fieldstone

For the most rustic installations, especially backyards being built up to look natural and informal, we use local Connecticut fieldstone. We source it from quarries within an hour of our shop. The stone is irregular by nature, and we set it irregularly so the patio looks like it was always part of the landscape rather than dropped onto it.

How we build a patio that lasts

This is the part most contractors won’t show you. The work that happens before the pavers go down is what determines whether your patio looks right in fifteen years or starts failing in three.

Excavation and base preparation

Every patio we build starts with excavating eight to twelve inches below the finished surface. The exact depth depends on soil conditions. For West Hartford’s heavy clay soils we typically go twelve inches. For sandier soils in Avon and Farmington we can sometimes get away with ten. Heavy clay also gets a layer of woven geotextile fabric at the bottom of the excavation to keep the base layer from migrating into the clay over time.

Compacted aggregate base

Six to nine inches of 3/4 inch crushed stone, compacted in two-inch lifts. Each lift is run with a vibratory plate compactor before the next lift goes on. We don’t shortcut this. A base that wasn’t compacted in lifts is a base that settles unevenly, and that’s what causes the dips and high spots you see in failing patios.

Setting layer

One inch of compacted concrete sand on top of the base, screeded flat to a precise grade. The pavers get set on this layer. The grade pushes water away from the house at one to two percent slope, never away from a downspout, never toward the foundation.

The pavers themselves

Set tight, cut clean at edges, with consistent joint width. Cut pavers around obstacles are done with a wet saw, not a chisel. The pattern is whatever the design called for, but it’s executed cleanly so the eye sees a whole surface, not a quilted patchwork.

Edge restraint

Pavetech aluminum or commercial-grade plastic edge restraint, spiked into the base every twelve inches. This is the piece that prevents the pavers from migrating outward over years of freeze-thaw cycling. Cheaper jobs skip this. Within five years the pavers are spreading and joints are opening.

Polymeric jointing

Joints filled with polymeric sand, which sets into a flexible binder when wet. This stops weeds from growing between the pavers, stops ants from undermining the base, and stops the sand itself from washing out after every rainstorm. It’s a small line item that matters enormously.

Why none of the above is in most contracts

Cheaper contractors either skip these steps or do shorter, faster versions of them, and they don’t put the details in writing. Our contracts spell out the base depth, the aggregate type, the sand spec, the edge restraint product, and the jointing material. You know exactly what you’re paying for, which means you also know exactly what you’re getting.

How big should your patio be?

Most backyards over-build the table area and under-build everything else. Here’s how we size patios in practice.

Dining zone

A typical six-to-eight-person dining table needs about a 12-by-14 foot patio area to support it with comfortable chair pull-back room. That’s 168 square feet just for dining. A larger table that handles ten to twelve people needs closer to 14-by-16, or 224 square feet.

Conversation zone

A four-chair conversation grouping around a fire pit or coffee table needs about 12-by-12, or 144 square feet. If you want a longer sectional or a larger lounge setup, count on 14-by-14 or larger.

Cooking zone

A grill alone needs about 6-by-6 of clearance. A built-in outdoor kitchen with prep space, grill, and side burner needs 10-by-8 minimum, plus 4-by-12 of working clearance in front.

Circulation

Four feet of clear walking space between zones, minimum. Six feet if guests need to pass each other comfortably.

Add it up: a backyard that does dining plus a fire pit plus a grill plus circulation lands around 600-900 square feet of patio. A larger entertaining backyard with all of that plus an outdoor kitchen and a separate lounge zone hits 1,200-1,800 square feet. Those numbers are what we see on most West Hartford and Avon projects.

What it costs

Patio pricing depends on size, material, base depth, edge complexity, and what’s underneath.

  • $12,000 to $18,000: Smaller patio (200-400 sqft), standard paver, straightforward layout, level lot
  • $18,000 to $28,000: Mid-size patio (400-700 sqft), premium paver or natural stone, some edge complexity, possible minor drainage work
  • $28,000 to $45,000: Large patio (700-1,200 sqft), bluestone or premium paver, complex edges, integrated drainage, planted edge beds
  • $45,000+: Major patio installations on sloped lots, requiring retaining walls, significant grading, or extensive natural stone work

The right number for your project comes out of the property walk. We don’t quote remotely.

Patios in the towns we serve

Every town we work in has its own patio character. Quick notes:

Farmington: Often more modest patio scope but higher-end finish materials. Bluestone is the most common choice. See Farmington projects.

West Hartford: Drainage almost always part of the conversation. Heavy clay soils require deeper bases. Older homes in West End often want bluestone over pavers. See West Hartford projects.

Avon: Mostly newer construction, larger lots, supports bigger patio footprints. Often combined with retaining walls because of the rolling terrain. See Avon projects.

Simsbury: Mix of historic and newer. The older homes want natural stone. The newer estate properties tend toward larger paver installations. See Simsbury projects.

Common Questions
About Patios

Most of our hardscape and outdoor living projects start around $20,000. We do larger custom transformations up to $200,000 and occasionally beyond. For longtime clients we’ll happily come back for smaller projects, but new clients should expect the minimum project size of $20,000.

Built correctly, no. The base is the determining factor. A patio set on a properly compacted base with proper edge restraint and polymeric joints should look the same fifteen years out as it did the day we finished. The patios that fail are the ones where someone skipped the base work or used the wrong materials.

If something does shift or settle, you call John on his cell and we come back to fix it. That’s part of how we work.

For most residential patios, no. Permits typically aren’t required for surface-level hardscape that doesn’t change drainage patterns or involve significant grading. If your patio involves regrading more than a thousand square feet, or if it’s part of a larger project that includes a retaining wall over four feet tall, town permits may apply. We handle the permit applications as part of the project when they’re needed.

Yes, often. The challenge is the root system. We don’t cut significant roots, which means the patio either flows around the tree with planted borders that protect the root zone, or it gets a tree well that keeps the trunk healthy while still leaving most of the patio usable. We evaluate this on the property walk.

Pavers are individual units set on a base with sand joints. They flex slightly with the ground, so they don’t crack across the surface the way concrete does. If something settles, individual pavers can be lifted and re-set without replacing the whole patio. Concrete is a single poured slab. When concrete cracks (and it eventually does in Connecticut’s freeze-thaw climate), the cracks are permanent. We don’t install poured concrete patios for this reason.

Ready to talk about your Patio?

Ten-minute phone call with John. We’ll ask the right questions, you’ll get straight answers.
Call (860) 200-3506