Planning a Backyard Entertaining Space, and the Order the Work Happens In

Start with how you'll use it

Before anyone picks a stone, it helps to answer a simple question: what does a good Saturday in this yard look like? Six people around a fire pit is a different space than thirty people with a grill going and kids running through. The answer decides how big the patio is, where the seating goes, and how people move around.

TJM Yard Enhancing's own list of backyard party additions is a useful menu: raised patios, steps and pillars, a fire pit with a sitting wall, an outdoor kitchen with wet bars and a grill, a pergola to shade part of the patio, and pizza ovens. You don't need all of them. Most good yards pick two or three and do them well. A patio that tries to hold a kitchen, a fire pit, a pergola and a dining table all at once usually ends up cramped, with nothing quite working.

The pieces, and what each one asks for

A raised patio with steps and pillars gives the space some definition, and it can level out a yard that slopes. It also means a retaining wall or a built-up base, which adds to the work underground.

A fire pit with a sitting wall is one of the simplest ways to make a patio feel finished. The wall gives people somewhere to sit without extra furniture. Keep it a comfortable distance from the house, from low branches and from the pergola, and plan for how you'll light it and put it out.

An outdoor kitchen with wet bars and a grill is the most involved piece, because it needs a solid, level footing for heavy equipment and sometimes utilities run to it. A pergola gives you shade over part of the patio instead of all of it, which keeps the rest open to the sun. A pizza oven is a heavy masonry feature, so it wants a proper foundation too.

If the kitchen needs gas, water or electric, have those lines planned before the base goes in. They're easy to place while the ground is open. Once the base and stone are down, reaching them means taking finished work apart.

Why the order matters

The sequence on a project like this is dig, base, stone, fence. It sounds obvious, but a lot of regrets come from doing it in a different order.

Excavation comes first because everything else rests on it. The area is cut out, the grade is set and the water's path is worked out. Next comes the compacted crushed-stone base, which is where the strength comes from. Only then does the stone go down, with the patio, walls, steps and pillars set on that base. Fencing comes after the heavy hardscape is in, because heavy machinery and stone deliveries can damage a finished fence, and the fence line is easier to set once the patio's edges are known.

If you're adding a pool, a pergola or an outdoor kitchen, tell the crew at the start. The base and layout for those pieces are worth planning before the first scoop of dirt comes out of the ground.

Think about the whole yard at once

• Where the water goes when it rains, and whether the patio's slope sends it away from the house.
• How people get from the back door to the seating, and how wide the steps should be.
• Where the grill and kitchen sit so smoke doesn't drift toward guests or the open windows.
• How the fence, if you're adding one, ties into the patio edges and gates.

One crew handling the dig, the base, the stone and the fence makes this easier. TJM Yard Enhancing uses in-house staff only, with no subcontractors, so you deal with one company from start to finish. Their own description puts it plainly: the work takes time, so they keep you informed of the progress, unforeseen problems, solutions, timelines and completion dates.

What a clean finish looks like

A customer on Angi wrote: “Very pleased with the finished product. Areas where work was done were thoroughly cleaned up.” It's a small thing to mention, but after a hardscape project the cleanup is part of what you live with afterward.

TJM is rated 4.8 from 39 reviews on Angi, backs its installations with a three-year warranty on workmanship, and works with Techo-Bloc Pro products. If you're picturing a backyard for entertaining in Quakertown or Coopersburg, call TJM Yard Enhancing at (610) 346-6867 for a FREE estimate.