Hardscaping Plans

Potentially very exciting news on the backyard front, but I can't let the cat out of the bag until we know for sure. Suffice it to say we are working with a landscape contractor who hooked us up with a Pennsylvania-based natural stone distributor. On Saturday the contractor and the distributors came to our house to look at the backyard area and show us some of their products. We've decided to keep the sunken concrete area as is and just try to veneer the surfaces rather than think about removing all that concrete. This will really help keep out backyard budget down and if this contractor is able to work his aforementioned secret magic, we could be in business very soon and in a very cool way. But that's all I can say now.

I can tell you about this really cool product though. The distributor is Ayers Supply and they brought out a lot of the Everlast Natural Stone products for us to see. Their ledgewall panels would go right on top of existing concrete using a fast setting, exterior grade adhesive along the lines of liquid nails. They would stack one on top of the other and can be cut just like regular tile with a wet saw. They even had corner pieces to make the installation that much easier.

We liked this multi-colored state ledgewall panel for the backyard area (even though this picture shows it in the front "yard").

For the front we liked the blue stone look. We desperately need to finish that front area soon as the unfinished concrete left by the contractor not only looks like crap but it powders in the rain and is gathering moss and mildew with all the rain and humidity lately

For the floor sections we would use their 1 inch thick slate tile in various square and rectangular patterns. Multi-colored slate for the backyard and blue stone for the front of course.

They also have column caps that we can use along the tops of the ledges and for the stairs

In the above photo from left to right:

Multi-colored slate corner ledgewall, multicolored slate ledgewall, bluestone ledgewall, tumbled multicolored slate, smooth multicolored slate

We show them in the sunroom which has multicolored slate tile that matches this stone perfectly.

So the plan would be to use those multicolored slate ledgewalls and 1 inch thick floor pavers in this entire sunken concrete area and around all these 2 foot vertical walls. I can't even imagine how much better it will make this space look.

Because that lower portion is an odd shape and not quite big enough for a seating area, we plan on doing a rounded paver area on the upper section were the weeds are for a table and chairs with planting around it. The distributor also brought over these multi-colored slate tumbled mesh-back pavers. So you can lay down about 4 square feet at a time and use either compacted sand or mortar between them—we would probably use sand up there. This would be much easier and faster, not to mention cheaper than a traditional 2-3 inch thick paver option which would require a lot more dirt removal and manual labor laying the stone.

Here they are on top of the slate tile so you can again see how well they match

So hopefully in the next week or so we'll have more info and things will go our way. After the crappy weekend we had and on top of the even crappier month, we could certainly use some good news.

Comments

[needham1959]

Dana- I could not find your e-mail address, hence my submission via this "Comments" link of this possible item of interest: http://mysticplanet.com/ALBUM/ConselyeaSt.htm

[dana]

Thanks Needham! That's a very cool and interesting link--that's just a block away from us. Very cool!