Making Garden Floors: Stone, Brick, Tile, Concrete, Ornamental Gravel, Recycled Materials and More

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Create a stunning garden floor that reflects who you are and how you live. Just like the ones in the kitchen or living room, a floor outside the home needs to be practical and to set the tone for the space. With a wealth of excellent how-to information; real-life, color examples; and plenty of gorgeous inspiration, you'll be able to make a perfect foundation for enjoying barbecues, hosting parties, escaping from the world to quietly meditate, or lounging around with good books. Design and material considerations for stone, brick, tile, concrete, and more, along with installation details, help you get the job done and love the results.

Give your garden a floor that not only satisfies a purpose but does so with flair, whether you want to enliven a spot that's featureless or add elegance to a setting that's ordinary. We go outside to grill hamburgers, entertain guests, eat dinner al fresco, and read the Sunday paper. Now you'll be able to select and install a floor that will make spending time in the garden even easier and more enjoyable.

Begin by learning the basics for planning and laying an outdoor floor, from putting your first stake in the ground to settling your pavers in place. Compare paving options and gather the tools you'll need for the job (none are specialized or hard to find, and the list is short). Then move on to the heart of the book -- detailed information for laying specific types of floors, along with color photos of examples and variations, from small, informal seating areas made of salvaged brick to contemporary pool surrounds of colored concrete.

Configure glazed tiles into a mosaic pattern, and your new patio will take on the look of a traditional Moroccan garden. Or choose gravel, the least complicated of materials. Remember, it doesn't have to take center stage to add texture to a garden floor -- use it, for example, to lend interest in between stone pathways. For a natural feeling, turn to flagstone and fieldstone, with their delightful assortment of bumps, nicks, irregularities, and ragged edges. And if a tried-and-true approach is too predictable for you, go for nontraditional materials, like recycled wood rounds set in sand. Your floor will become as beautiful an element of your garden as the flowers and trees.

SYNOPSIS

Improve your garden from the ground up, with these essential floor "show-hows"-plus superb photos of real-life garden transformations and recipes for practically every type of imaginable paving.

A basics section starts with grading a site and ends with directions for excavating and filling a foundation for any type of outdoor "floor."

Another chapter assesses materials.

Then, find out how to use each one of those ground covers, from informal areas of salvaged brick to contemporary pool surrounds of colored concrete.