If you are considering a new landscape patio design, this information is for you:
1. Unity is the key: How many times have you been to a person’s house only to see that their landscape patio design is completely haphazard, with nothing that makes it look like a cohesive design? The answer is probably “pretty often” if you have neighbours and friends that are into landscape design. Most people plant and construct what they like rather than what goes well together. Do not fall into this same trap; each element you add to your landscape should bring the overall design together, not drive it apart.
2. Aesthetics, not symmetry: While an aesthetic design for your landscape is certainly an important thing, this is not the same thing as symmetry. Symmetrical landscapes can be appealing, or they can appear artificial. Do not be afraid to landscape asymmetrically as long as the overall design is pleasing.
3. Relief and Emphasis: The best way to create something with emphasis is to have it contrast with the surrounding area, thereby creating some sort of relief. This can help your landscape immensely if done properly.
4. K.I.S.S: Keep it simple, stupid! This is one of the most famous design acronyms around. The more complicated your design is, the harder it will be to implement.
5. Moderate Variety: Too much variety will detract from unity, but too little will have the same effect as symmetry.
6. Free Space: A lot of times the addition of space or the leaving of space can actually be a good thing for your landscape. It’s like when you choose to leave something blank or else very lightly filled in on a painting; it is there to provide contrast and to provide a different look in a positive way.
7. Lighting: Lighting should be a fairly easy consideration in your landscape patio design. This is because lighting will determine which elements you see as dusk settles over your patio. Putting your lighting in those spots that need to be highlighted must be an essential part of your early blueprints.
8. Transitions: Almost as important as the elements that you choose to include are the transitions between elements. You want the transitions to be smooth and seamless so that the unity (see tip number 1) is preserved and enhanced.
9. Price: Everything that you want to do comes with an amount of money you need to pay in order to get it done, and that is why price is also a very important consideration; plan with your budget in mind.
10. Effort: Anything to be created takes both money and effort (you can of course pay more money to a contractor to decrease the effort necessary if you wish) and therefore you need to consider a) whether this is within your budget and do-able by you or b) whether the materials and the money that a contractor would need are both within the budget that you have for this project.
For help and ideas designing your patio, check out patio stone designs using patio design software.