We are Toronto based landscaping contractors who offer complete landscaping solutions including Pool Building and Installation, Paving, Deck Building, interlocking, Outdoor Kitchen Installation, Woodworking, and many more, These landscaping services can be tailored to every budget. At M.E. Contracting we are proud to call ourselves a one-stop-shop for all your outdoor landscaping needs. We also own the only outdoor living showroom in Ontario with over 7,000 Square feet of landscaping items & accessories such as Interlocking tiles, stones, Railings, decks, pergolas, several outdoor kitchens, and outdoor furniture and even a full-size fiberglass pool!
During the warm weather months, the patio often becomes the focal point of the home’s social life. As such you want to ensure your patio is always as stylish as it is functional and with patios, style begins with the surface itself. In this post, we’re going to take a look at a variety of patio styles currently in vogue. We’ll discuss the various materials in play as well as how those materials are utilized to achieve the visual effects the designer is after.
Patio Materials and Styles
Just as the style of your home is both driven by and informed by the materials used in its construction so too the style of your patio is driven and informed by the materials used to create the physical surface of the patio itself. Below we’re going to look at patio materials typically used by a landscaping contractor and the various styles they’re most commonly used to create.
Interlocking Pavers
Concrete pavers resemble brick yet are available in a much wider array of shapes, sizes, and colors. Concrete pavers can be used to create both formal and informal style patios. Pavers of a single color, when deployed in simple organic patterns, can create a loose, informal atmosphere for your patio. If you want a patio style that’s more stately and formal choose pavers of different colors and sizes and arrange them in more rigid, geometric patterns. Interlocking pavers are typically one of the more cost-effective patio surface solutions as installation costs are moderate yet they’ll last for centuries if properly cared for.
Brick
Brick is a time-honored material that’s durable, functional, and affordable. The “time-honored” aspect of this material is a giveaway that it’s most often used by the landscaping contractor to create a rustic look and feel for the patio area. If you have a brownstone in North York or a Colonial Era home on the outskirts of Toronto that you want to create a patio you’ll likely want to use brick to do so.
Check out the Latest Guide on Landscaping Design and popular Patio style
Stained Concrete
The use of stained concrete to create patios is a fairly new phenomenon and one capable of adapting to and/or creating a wide range of patio styles. An almost unlimited number of color and surface effects are possible when using stained concrete. But this material really shines when it’s used to bring some of the more expansive, minimalist contemporary patio styles to life. The cost of this type of surface will vary depending on the effect you wish to achieve.
Stamped Concrete
Stamped concrete is another relatively recent design innovation that has captured the imagination of GTA homeowners and for very good reason. It’s extremely versatile and can be used to create everything from a rustic look to a boldly contemporary patio surface. There are 2 types of stamped concrete: an open mold stamp is used solely to create shapes while closed mold stamps are used to add texture to the concrete surface. Virtually any style of contemporary patio can be created using stamped concrete and the process is typically far more affordable than natural stone.
Flagstone
Flagstone is an extremely versatile patio material that can be made to serve a variety of stylistic masters. You can achieve everything from a loose, rustic look (using rough-hewn, mortarless flagstone) to a beautifully crafted seamless surface that will look perfectly appropriate snuggled up to your one-of-a-kind contemporary masterpiece of a house. Can be expensive though.
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Mortared Cut Stone
Mortared cut stone provides a timeless atmosphere to your backyard that works beautifully with older, more traditional homes. It is often considered to be a somewhat more formal material than flagstone, or at least a material that lends itself to more formal design applications. Mortared cut stone is a popular choice for high-use patios so if you entertain a lot it might be a good choice for you. Installation can range from moderately expensive to very expensive.
Exterior Tiles
Exterior tiles can be fabricated from terra cotta, porcelain, concrete, synthetic stone and more. With their geometric shapes and myriad organic-style patterns, they create evocative surfaces that are also clean, sleek, comfortable underfoot and low maintenance. They’re most commonly used when a designer is working in a contemporary style and they range in price anywhere from moderately affordable to very expensive.
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Precast Steppers
Precast steppers come in a variety of shapes and sizes although they’re typically large and laid down at a distance from one another. The overall effect of a precast stepper patio is one of integration with its surroundings. Grass or gravel is often used to fill the space between slabs. This type of patio requires an experienced Toronto landscaping contractor to pull off successfully and it can be higher maintenance than many other types of patio surface. Costs however are typically among the lowest of any patio material.
Other Materials
Other popular patio materials include mulch and pea gravel. Both of these are free-form materials laid down en masse and shifted about until an even surface is achieved. A mulch patio can be finished by edging it with brick or wooden 4x4s and can be very comfortable underfoot; although it can make levelling your chair something of a challenge. Pea gravel allows for a slightly more substantial surface than mulch and exhibits excellent drainage characteristics, although it will still shift when you walk on it and levelling out your chair can still be an issue. Both mulch and pea gravel is used to create a rustic look and both are extremely affordable patio materials.
Call the Leading Toronto Landscaping Contractor to Find out More
Your landscaping contractor can discuss the various material options available to you and provide you with plenty of examples of how the different materials inform various patio styles. M.E. Contracting is the most trusted landscaping contractor with decades of combined experience designing and building breathtaking patios for clients in every corner of the GTA.
Call us today on (416) 238-6700 to find out more about patio styles and materials.
Author Profile
'M.E. Contracting is one of Toronto’s premier outdoor solutions company. Founded by owners Keren and Eitan Abu, with a desire to change the face of Toronto through the revitalization of outdoor living space, M.E. Contracting was established. The “M” and “E” stand for Keren and Eitan’s daughters, Mika and Emma; from the start these two girls have inspired the vision of innovation and creativity that M.E. embodies today. Want to see for yourself? Our 7,000 square foot landscaping showroom is the only showroom in Ontario dedicated to landscaping and outdoor transformations'
