Patio Ideas: 12 From Gardens We've Built in Nottingham

Most patios start as the same thing: a strip of slabs outside the back door, just about deep enough for two chairs. Plenty of the gardens we're asked to redo have one. What people want instead varies a lot, and it usually depends less on the paving than on the shape of the garden, where the sun is and how the house sits on the plot.

These are twelve patio ideas from gardens we've built around Nottingham. Each one comes with what made it work, and what to watch for if you want something similar.

1. Go wider than the strip you were left with

The simplest idea is just more patio. A new build often comes with a narrow run of slabs along the back of the house, and an older house usually has whatever somebody put down decades ago. Neither fits a dining table, a sofa and room to walk between them.

On a corner plot or a detached house, the patio can carry on round the side of the house, which gives you a second spot that catches different light. On this one the paving runs across the back and round the side.

The rule of thumb for sizing: measure your table, then add about a metre on every side where a chair goes. Do the same for a corner sofa. It's easy to underestimate, and paving added later rarely matches as well as laying it in one go.

2. Build it around the extension

If you've just had an extension with bifold or French doors, the patio is the bit that makes those doors worth having. Lay it the full width of the doors so the paving feels like the floor carrying on outside, and pick a colour that sits well against the new brick or render.

Jen Gray asked us for exactly that, in her review of a different job:

The thing to get right here is the level at the doors. New doors often have a low threshold, and the patio still has to sit at least 150mm below the damp proof course and fall away from the house. Where it can't fall away fast enough, a channel drain along the doors takes the water instead.

3. Raise it where the garden falls away

When a garden drops away from the back of the house, a patio laid at lawn level means steps down out of the door and a view of the fence. Building the patio up so it sits closer to the house level gives you a flat terrace off the doors and steps down to the lawn.

In the photo at the top, the raised edge is clad in the same porcelain as the patio, so the whole thing reads as one piece rather than slabs on top of a block wall.

Two things to know before building up. The finished patio still has to stay at least 150mm below the damp proof course, which sometimes means it sits a step below the door rather than flush with it. And the planning rules treat a platform more than 30cm above the ground differently from a patio, so on a garden that falls a long way, check with the council before the height is settled.

4. Terrace a slope instead of fighting it

On a steeper garden, one big raised patio would mean a huge retaining wall. Splitting the slope into levels works better: a patio on the lower level, held by a retaining wall, with steps up to the next.

Sleepers suit a garden like this one, with mature trees behind it. Gabion baskets filled with stone suit a more modern look. Either way, a retaining wall holding back soil is a structure, and it needs the drainage behind it to be right or the water pressure pushes it over in time. Our guide to sleeper retaining walls on sloped gardens covers how they're built.

5. Sink a seating area

The opposite of a raised patio. Dropping a seating area a step below the rest of the garden makes it feel enclosed and sheltered, even in an open plot, and it gives you a ready-made edge to build a bench into.

This is my own garden in Burton Joyce. The seating area drops a step down, with a bench built round two sides, cedar slat screens behind it, festoon lights overhead and a firepit in the middle. It's the part everyone asks about.

A sunken area needs somewhere for the rain to go, because it's the lowest point in the garden. Plan the drainage in from the start. The full write up of my garden shows it going in, from bare soil to finished.

6. Swap the straight edge for a curve

Straight edges suit a straight garden. Where a patio meets a lawn, a curve softens the whole garden and gives it a more designed look, without costing you any usable space where the table sits.

Curves get noticed. From a review of another job:

A curve means cutting every slab along the edge, so it takes longer to lay than a straight line. A row of smaller border units laid round the curve keeps the line crisp, and it gives the mower a clean edge to run along.

7. Frame it with a contrasting border

A border round the outside of a patio works like a frame on a picture. It sharpens the edge where paving meets lawn or gravel, and it lets you mix two colours without the patio looking busy.

Warm buff sandstone with a charcoal edge is a popular combination. A light grey porcelain with a darker grey border is the modern version. Keep the border to one or two slabs wide, or it starts to compete with the patio. If you're still choosing between stone and porcelain, our porcelain vs Indian sandstone guide goes through how they compare.

8. Put a pergola over the table

A patio in full sun is great in April and too much in July. A pergola over the dining end gives you shade and shelter, and a frame to hang lights from, without boxing the garden in.

Timber pergolas suit most gardens and can be stained to match the fence. Aluminium ones with a louvred roof can be opened and closed, so they keep the rain off as well as the sun. If you want lights or a heater, wire them in as part of the build, because it's much tidier than adding them later. Our pergola ideas guide compares the two.

9. Build raised beds into the edges

A patio on its own can look like a car park, especially a big one. Raised sleeper beds along one or two sides give you planting at a height you can reach without kneeling, and they make the patio feel like part of the garden rather than something laid on top of it.

The beds can double as seating if you build them to the right height and cap them with a wide board. Fill them with decent soil rather than whatever came out of the ground, and give them somewhere to drain. Our guide to raised beds covers the soil, drainage and depth.

10. Follow the sun with a second patio

In a north-facing garden, the house shades the patio by the back door for most of the day. The sunny spot is at the far end. A second, smaller patio down the garden, linked by a path, gives you somewhere to sit in the evening sun while the main patio by the house stays the place to eat.

Plenty of gardens end up with more than one. Adrian Potter's did:

Before you decide where any patio goes, stand in the garden at six on a summer evening and see where the sun is. That's where you'll want to sit.

11. Pave a small yard wall to wall

In a small terraced garden, a patch of lawn the size of a rug rarely survives. It goes muddy in winter, there's nowhere to put the mower, and it takes space from the table. Paving the whole yard gives you more room, not less.

Lay the slabs running away from the house and a narrow yard looks longer. Keep to one material all the way through so it reads as one space, and put the planting into raised beds or pots around the edges. In a yard like this, getting materials in is often the hardest part of the job, and it's worth asking how a contractor plans to do it.

12. Light it for the evenings

Patios mostly get used in the evening, after work and at weekends, which is exactly when an unlit one stops being usable. Festoon lights overhead, a few uplighters into planting or lights built into a wall or step change how late you can stay out.

Low level lighting in steps and walls has to go in while they're being built, with the cable run under the paving before it's laid. Festoon lights can go up later, but they still want a properly fitted outdoor socket rather than an extension lead through the kitchen window. Decide on lighting before the first slab goes down.

What every patio needs, whichever idea you pick

The ideas above are the part you see. What decides whether a patio still looks right in ten years is underneath it.

• A dug-out, compacted sub-base. Paving laid on soil or a thin layer of sand moves, dips and rocks
• A full mortar bed under every slab. Not dabs of mortar at the corners, which leave voids for water to sit in and slabs that crack or rock
• Primed porcelain. Porcelain doesn't absorb water, so mortar won't grip the back of it without a bonding primer
• A fall away from the house. Every patio is laid on a slight slope so rain runs off, with a channel drain at the doors where it can't fall away fast enough
• The right height. At least 150mm below the damp proof course, so water splashing off the paving can't reach the walls

Our guide to Indian sandstone patios covers how we lay natural stone in more detail.

If you want it finished for the spring, autumn and winter are when to get it planned. We design and lay patios across Nottingham, in porcelain, Indian sandstone and block paving, and you can see more finished gardens on our reviews page.