Concrete & Rock Patio Designs
Patios are a landscape feature that use rock or stonework to form their bases instead of the wood used to make decks. There is a wide variety of patio designs, but they depend largely on the type of stone used and how large the patio is. While both concrete and rock are popular materials to build patios with, they can be set in many different patterns or even combined, depending on the process. Does this Spark an idea?
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Concrete Pavers
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Pavers are tiles or bricks that are placed together to form the patio. The benefit of pavers is that they are very regular, having been mass produced to be of equal size. This allows landscapers to plan out very intricate designs with the pavers, including circular, herringbone, basket weave and running band patterns. Pavers, however, will need a level and reliable base such as sand, gravel or cement.
Concrete Designs
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Another popular patio option is poured concrete, which is much easier to level and maintain than concrete pavers. These patios are rarely constructed with a plain concrete surface, however. They are often stamped, stained or overlaid. Stamping refers to using mats to stamp certain designs into the concrete, from tile-like patterns to natural or geometric images. Staining is a type of painting that gives concrete a particular color or polish. Overlays cover concrete with an epoxy layer that can be made to resemble different types of rocks.
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Natural Rock
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Natural rock patio options include flagstone, fieldstone and other high quality options. Although these options are expensive, they also tend to last longer. However, landscapers will need to incorporate a more random design into the patio, since natural stones are not uniformly shaped and must be grouped together on a base as they can be fitted. A stonecutter is often used to cut off stones at the edges of the patio if all the rocks are large.
Processed Rock
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Processed rock refers to cut pieces of granite tile or similar rocks that have been treated to make them uniform in size and often weather-resistant. These rock tiles can be expensive, but are much easier to fit into patio designs. Landscapers can easily use scales and graph paper to plot a design with these rocks, rather than using a random design.
Terrazzo
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Terrazzo is an Italian-based form that uses both concrete and rock to form a pattern. A concrete base is created, and then an epoxy mixture of resin and shards of rock such as granite or marble is layered over it, giving the stone a marble-like look or a rock-textured appearance that can be used to great effect in certain patios. Terrazzo is especially applicable for large or in-set patios.
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- Photo Credit patterned brick patio image by David Levinson from Fotolia.com
