Outdoor Living Spaces

One plan for the whole backyard

Most backyards grow one project at a time. A deck goes on one year, a patio a few years later, then somebody wants a pergola and finds the patio is in the wrong place for posts. Each piece was fine on its own. Together they fight each other, and the homeowner pays twice for work that has to be cut out and redone.

When we plan an outdoor living space, we walk the whole yard with you before anything is drawn. Where does the sun sit at dinner time? Which door do you actually use to carry food out? Where does the snow pile up in February, and where does the water go when the gutters overflow? Those answers decide the layout more than any picture does.

The result is one written scope covering every element, with the levels and the build sequence spelled out. You may decide to build it in phases over two or three seasons, and that is often sensible. The point is that phase one gets built knowing exactly what phase three needs underneath it.

It also gives you one set of numbers to look at. When the deck, the patio and the cover are priced as one scope, you can see where the money goes and decide what to build now and what to hold, instead of comparing three separate proposals that each assume something different about the others.

The order the pieces get built

Sequence is where backyard projects usually go wrong. Anything that runs underground goes in first: drainage pipe, conduit for lighting and outlets, a sleeve for a gas line if an outdoor kitchen or fire feature is coming later. Laying a patio and then trenching across it for a light post is the most common and most avoidable mistake we see.

Structure comes next. Deck footings and any posts for a cover or pergola go below frost depth, which in Massachusetts is commonly about four feet, and they have to land where the framing plan says, not wherever the pavers happen to leave a gap. Then framing, then the ground-level hardscape around it, then rails, stairs, light fixtures and finish work.

We write that order down and share it with you at the start. If a piece is deferred to a later season, we still put in the sleeves or footings it will need, so the future job bolts on instead of breaking in.

Lumber and stone deliveries get timed to that order too, so a pallet of pavers is not parked for three weeks on the spot where a footing needs to go.

We open the siding where we attach, look at what is there, and tell you if we find rot before we bolt anything to it.

Where the pieces meet the house and each other

The joints are what make a backyard feel designed. A deck that steps down onto a patio needs its step heights worked out against the patio's final grade, including the base and the thickness of the pavers. A cover over part of the deck needs its posts sized and placed so they do not land in a walking path or block the view from the kitchen window.

Where anything touches the house, water is the concern. A deck ledger has to be flashed so rain running down the siding cannot get behind it and rot the rim joist. A roof or pergola attached to the wall has to be fastened into real framing and sealed. We open the siding where we attach, look at what is there, and tell you if we find rot before we bolt anything to it.

Materials should agree with each other too. The decking color, the paver tone, the trim on the cover and the railing style get chosen together, with samples laid side by side outside in daylight, so the yard reads as one place rather than four catalogs.

Steps and landings are where people actually get hurt outside. Rise and run stay consistent through every transition, handrails go where the code and common sense call for them, and stair lighting is planned so nobody is guessing at a step after dark.

Drainage, grade and the parts nobody sees

Every hard surface you add to a yard changes where water goes. A large patio plus a roof over the deck can send a surprising amount of runoff toward a foundation that never handled it before. Hard surfaces get pitched away from the house, and where the yard is tight we plan a drain, a swale or a dry well so the water has somewhere to go.

Freeze and thaw is the other enemy. A paver base that is too thin or poorly compacted heaves after a couple of winters, and steps that were level in June become a trip hazard by March. We dig out to a proper depth, compact in lifts and treat the base as the real work, because it is.

Lighting and outlets get planned now even if the fixtures come later. Outdoor electrical work is done by a licensed electrician, as Massachusetts requires, and the conduit runs are drawn into the plan so they end up under the right steps and beside the right posts.

How the project runs week to week

A multi-part backyard has more moving pieces than most interior jobs: inspections on the deck framing, deliveries of stone and lumber, an electrician scheduled at the right moment, and weather that decides some days for us. We keep you posted on all of it. You hear from us before a delay, not after it.

Decks and roofed structures are permitted and inspected through your town's building department under the state building code, 780 CMR. We pull the permits, book the inspections and are there when the inspector walks the job. If something needs to change, you get the reason and the options before the work moves on.

The yard is a working site while we are there, but it is still your yard. Material gets staged where we agreed, the lawn we are not working on gets protected, and the site is picked up at the end of each day. Customers have said Steve will not put his name on a job that is not right, and that includes the parts buried under the patio.

See the rest of our exterior work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.