In recent years, homeowners have spent an increasing portion of their budgets enhancing their outdoor living spaces and the hottest items to fill these spaces were outdoor cooking units. Outdoor fireplaces are the latest trend. Anyone can have an outside fireplace, and prices and styles run the gamut from basic to extravagant.
Outdoor stone fireplaces are a great way to add elegance and style to the outdoor space of a home. Crafted with attractive stones, an outdoor stone fireplace makes a perfect gathering place on frosty nights. Stone is the most preferable material for constructing an outdoor fireplace, as it is long-lasting and non-combustible. Top quality marble, sandstone, natural stone, cast coral stone, stucco, and granite can all be used for building an outdoor stone fireplace and can be designed to suit any outdoor setting, from contemporary to classic. Just look out how the fireplace we designed and installed for an Atlanta-area homeowner creates a warm and inviting gathering place in this lovely backyard!
Atlanta Patios and Firepit
Some of the things to consider when adding an outdoor fireplace to your landscape include:
- Design: Outdoor fireplaces are built just like indoor fireplaces except that you don’t need a damper, you need to use hydraulic-setting, non-water soluble refractory mortar and usually the clearance-to-combustibles and other code issues are easier to follow. Typically, all outdoor fireplace designs feature a mantel shelf, an over-mantel, a fire box, a filler panel, crown, header, a plinth base and a leg.
- Placement: Outdoor fireplaces may smoke in a breeze, so the fireplace should be sheltered from the wind and located away from your home and any flammable items such as wooden decks, pergolas, or overhanging plants or trees.
- Fuel: The choice of fuels for your outdoor fireplace includes charcoal, wood, and gas. If you already have gas lines installed around your home, you can have a professional connect your gas unit to the existing gas lines. You can also look into a propane-powered unit, if you prefer to use gas but do not have gas lines available.
Outdoor fireplaces are a relatively new phenomenon, and regulations governing them vary from state to state and town to town, so its best to get advice from a licensed and insured contractor who is experienced in the installation of outdoor fireplaces in your area.
Atlanta Patios and Retaining Wall
Sloped yards create a wealth of problems for homeowners for a number of reasons. When covered with grass, mowing is a challenge as well as dangerous. If a garden exists on the slope, keeping mulch and nutrients in the soil becomes another challenge. Despite these challenges, there are a number of easy landscaping projects you can undertake that will help solve the problems presented by sloping yards.
- Plants: Adding plants to a hillside is one of the easiest (and cheapest) ways to beautify your yard while cutting back on erosion. You can purchase a variety of “erosion-friendly” plants at a local nursery or home improvement store. Such plants include ground covers, shrubs and perennials.
- Boulders and Rocks: Scatter boulders and large rocks along the hillside, especially between gaps in the plants. Firmly secure the rocks in the ground, as they too can run-off and cause damage in the event of a rain storm.
- Retaining Walls: If you are dealing with a very steep hill, hardscaping will generally put an end to the problem of erosion. Retaining walls are built into the slope to level the overall garden and bring the lowest levels up to grade. Installing a retaining wall requires using some kind of stone, brick or landscaping block to create a sturdy wall to hold the soil. Many retaining walls are mortared into place with concrete for added stability. By leveling the grade, your choices of plantings become much larger since water availability and drainage issues are no longer a problem.
- Terraces: With the help of a contractor, you can create terraces using retaining walls that break up the hill into flat, manageable layers. Terraces involve the installation of multiple retaining walls at varying levels. These lovely additions to a home offer a stunning garden environment to house your most treasured plants. Terraces are built with the same materials as retaining walls and resemble wide steps up the slope of a hill.
Just take a look at the terraced retaining walls we designed and installed for an Atlanta-area homeowner. The brick walls are a beautiful and functional way of managing the sloping backyard, and the built-in drainage system eliminates any erosion problems. The result – an attractive backdrop for showcasing the homeowner’s plants and a larger patio for entertaining and enjoying the outdoors.
Simple projects like the addition of plants and boulders can easily be undertaken on a small budget and on a do-it-yourself basis. The design and installation of retaining walls and terraces is a more complex process and, unless you are an expert, should be completed with the help of an experienced landscaping contractor. In either case, your landscape will be more visually pleasing and erosion problems will be minimized!
In the current economic climate, people are increasingly looking at low budget options when it comes to home improvement and landscaping. Believe it or not, there are plenty of landscaping projects you can do that will have a big impact on a small budget.
When it comes to maintaining a landscape, the four factors that incur continual costs are trimming, mulching, weeding, and watering. By minimizing these, you will not only reduce the amount of maintenance (and work!) needed to maintain your garden – you will also save money!
Dallas Arbors, Fencing
Listed below are some landscape design tips that will help reduce the cost of maintaining your landscaped garden:
- Replace mulch with gravel: Using gravel in place of mulch can help reduce weeds and also aids in soil retention. And unlike mulch, gravel seldom needs replacement.
- Choose plants wisely: Avoid insect- and disease-prone plants (such as Azaleas), as well as plants that need continual pruning (such as dwarf yaupons and boxwood).
- Develop various points of focus in your garden: Consider the use of things other than plants to serve as points of focus. Adding pathways to your landscape design can be a great way to allow access to various parts within the space, and can be quite pleasing to the eye.
- Invest in landscape lighting: Lighting can help you showcase the most beautiful parts of your landscape, while masking those that are less desirable. Good lighting also provides security, and is a great economical way to increase your home’s value.
- Add a water feature: Outdoor fountains are appealing to the eye and a great way to de-stress, and not all water fountains are expensive.
Not all landscaping projects require big budgets, and sometimes small changes can make a big difference in the look of your yard as well as your enjoyment of your outdoor space. Check out the beautiful pathways we installed around a Dallas-Fort Worth area home!
With some careful planning and wise investing, you can improve the look of your landscape without breaking the bank.
Dallas Patios and Landscape Lighting
Landscape lighting is a great way of enhancing the look of your home and yard after dark, making your yard more pleasant to relax in at night, and an attractive place for evening entertaining. If you’ve put the effort into making your yard attractive, landscape lighting will ensure that your hard work doesn’t go to waste once the sun goes down.
Homeowners install landscape lighting for a variety of reasons. Lighting can be used to illuminate steps and pathways for added safety, to highlight specific architectural details of your home, or to create a particular mood (from subdued or relaxed, to dramatic or formal) in your yard.
If you are thinking of installing landscape lighting as part of your overall landscape design, here are five ways you can use lighting to beautify your home and improve your landscape:
- Pathway lights blaze a clear, bright walking path through your landscape while ensuring the safety of residents and visitors alike in the evening hours.
- Patio lighting invites cheerful gatherings by adding practical light without sacrificing the evening atmosphere.
- Uplighting carefully placed behind foundation shrubbery illuminates not only the shrubbery and your home’s façade, but also provides pathway lighting to increase safety and present a more welcoming appearance for evening visitors.
- Poolside lighting yields a soft effect for your pool area, enabling safe evening use of the pool and unobtrusive visibility from the house. Take a look at the work we did for one Dallas-Fort Worth area homeowner – the new landscape lighting adds warm atmosphere to the pool area and enhances the safety of the deck and pool at night.
- Recessed outdoor lights can be used to direct the eye to the movement of water in a fountain, waterfall, or other water feature.
Think of outdoor lighting as jewelry. Landscape lights can really make a home pop at night, but getting your lighting plan right can be tough.
A good landscape lighting contractor will approach each home as a blank canvas, considering the architectural details, landscape highlights and open spaces before crafting a lighting design that draws attention to the best aspects of all of these things. The results should leave your home’s outdoor areas more beautiful at night, safer for your family and more inviting for lingering and lounging outdoors into the evening and through the night.
