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Handy Tips on How to Do Hardscaping

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Hardscaping refers to the addition of non-living and human-made features to a property’s landscape. Brick pavings, patios, and sidewalks are all popular hardscaping elements. Hardscaping may seem like a simple job, but it’s not. The features one adds must compliment the home and must be diverse enough to make the outside interesting while also keeping it clean and balanced. In this article, we discuss a few ideas for homeowners planning to undertake hardscaping.

Handy Tips on How to Do Hardscaping

Here are four simple but useful tips that will help you create a lively and exciting hardscape.

Outdoor Kitchens Never Go out of Fashion

If you are someone who enjoys company and gatherings and is known to host great parties, an outdoor kitchen is a fabulous hardscaping element choice for you. Even those who maintain a low presence in social circles can benefit significantly from an outdoor kitchen. Not only does an outdoor kitchen extend your home’s living space but it also cuts the need to run inside the house to get things continually.

Build a Patio

Patios have been homeowners’ favorite outdoor addition for decades now. Not only do they enhance the beauty of a home, but also create a designated and peaceful space for relaxing and hosting company. Patios, as hardscaping elements, make the most sense for homes built on slopes. Split patios, i.e. patios carved out of houses built on slopes, can have multiple levels, with each level dedicated to a different purpose.

Driveways and Sideways Are Other Good Options

If you are planning to renovate your exteriors, turning your outdoor space into driveways and walkways is a good idea. Though many homeowners prefer driveways and walkways made from concrete or asphalt, we recommend using brick pavers for several different reasons. First, brick pavers give driveways and sideways a unique aesthetic appeal. Second, brick pavers are durable and usually last a long time. Third, they are easy to maintain and easier to repair. Fourth, and most importantly, brick pavers are slip-resistant, a property that makes them the ideal choice for all kinds of homes, especially those located in areas receiving high rainfall.

Beautify Your Home with Water Features

Outdoor kitchens, patios, sideways, and driveways are all good hardscaping ideas. However, these are also ideas that most people decide to go with. If you want your hardscaping to be unique, consider adding a water feature to your exteriors. If space is not a constraint, you can choose to go with something completely different and beautiful, such as a pond with fishes. Adding a swimming pool is yet another good idea. The presence of water will not only add serenity to your hardscape but will also bring in feelings of peace and joy. However, before you decide to go with a water feature, know that a swimming pool or a fish pond will be harder to maintain than an outdoor kitchen or a patio. Thus, consider adding a water feature only if you are ready to put in the hard work and money.

Conclusion

Proper hardscaping can beautify your home beyond your imagination. However, add a few wrong things, and you may end up ruining the entire look of your home. We hope the tips mentioned above will prove useful if you plan to do your hardscaping anytime soon. If you are unsure of what you want to do with your hardscape, we recommend hiring an expert.

Schedule a Quote from JJW Brick Today!

Give JJW Brick a call today to learn more about retaining walls and other hardscape options we offer at 1-800-BRICK-PAVERS.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Hardscape Investments Bring the Greatest Returns

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In a report released by the NALP and the NAR (National Association of Landscape Professionals and National Association of Realtors, respectively), landscaping and hardscaping are viable home improvement investments in both the short and long terms. These investments immediately bring pleasure and enhanced enjoyment form homeowners’ outdoor living space experiences while also adding true, real value to their properties.

In short, landscaping and hardscaping projects are no-lose ventures. Looked at another way, they aren’t an expense – they’re an investment. And as more and more homeowners realize that their mindsets shift and they begin to assess their outdoor living spaces in a completely different light. Instead of seeing how they can make the best of what they have, they start visualizing how to bring out the best in what is possible.

In this case, their possibilities revolve around their existing property’s specifications, the space they have to work with and – most importantly – what they most want to do and experience when spending time outdoors.

So, read on.

Discover how and why hardscape investments add value to your quality of life and your property.

Preserve and protect your property.   One thing is for sure when it comes to investing – or not investing – in your home and property. Damage is costly and dilapidation from disregarding imminent damage is even costlier. For this reason, hardscape projects like retaining walls are one of the most crucial hardscape projects you should consider if your property is at risk of erosion, and there are grade changes in the yard.

If a portion  – or all  – of your yard is unusable because of steep sloping, over time, your foundation will become water damaged. The constant water and dirt flow eventually will accumulate and erode the slope and then damage your foundation. However, a retaining wall can be designed and built to manage the flow of water, so it flows away from the foundation. Furthermore, a retaining wall built as the result of this particular circumstance can also create a much more ambient appeal to the entire property.

Attract attention and praise.  The operative words to all real estate agents when describing and listing a home are “curb appeal”. This feature is often the most critical aspect when they present, market, and sell a home. If a home isn’t immediately eye-appealing, the majority of potential buyers will pass without even looking inside the home.

Making basic upgrades like paver edging to border your garden or an attractive, functional retainer wall can go a long way toward creating and enhancing curb appeal.

However, including a beautiful paving stone patio with its own entryway or even a seat wall will draw attention and admiration from neighbors, visitors, and passers-by as well as potential home buyers.  This means that hardscape upgrades not only add value to your outdoor living experience, they also add market value to your home.

Schedule a Quote from JJW Brick Today!

Give JJW Brick a call today to learn more about hardscape at 1-800-BRICK-PAVERS.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Why Are Hardscapes A Good Investment?

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When you see hardscapes in other people’s yards and throughout their outdoor living space, what is your impression?

Do you only give them a quick glance and then move your attention to the landscaping?

Do you notice how the two – hardscapes and landscapes – complement each other and when joined together – make the home and the entire property much more appealing?

Does hardscaping capture your attention and admiration?

When you look at hardscapes, do you see their functions, or do you see their aesthetics? Or maybe a combination of both?

As you can tell from these questions, hardscapes are terrific assets to any type of yard or outdoor living space.  Consisting of features that are man-made, hardscapes range from walls, decks, and walkways to patios, driveways, and fountains.  Constructed of materials like gravel, mulch, boulders, metal, stone, wood, brick and concrete, hardscapes are diverse in their designs and styles.

And, in addition to them being the opposite of landscaping in that hardscapes aren’t “alive”, hardscapes all share one common feature – through their incorporation into the architecture of landscaping, hardscapes functionally and aesthetically complement the home.

By offering tremendous advantages, hardscapes are a wise investment for many reasons; among them are:

Hardscapes elevate the value of the property.  It is widely recognized that adding a hardscape prompts an increase in your home’s value. Essentially, through their ability to extend your complete living space, hardscapes extend the quality of living to a home. By adding functionality to more square footage, you have enhanced the value and appeal of your home when you add a hardscape. It is reported that more than 80-% of home buyers seek an outdoor patio in the home they are considering buying.

Hardscapes don’t require maintenance. Once the hardscape is designed according to your preferences and budget, it’s in place and ready to perform for you year after year without costly maintenance or excessive attention. You don’t need to trim, mow, or water a hardscape. The only attention it needs from you is your enjoyment.

Hardscapes don’t increase your water bill. Closely related to the above, because hardscape doesn’t’ require watering, they don’t cost you any additional money in terms or utilities or water.

Hardscapes can preempt problems in areas at risk of erosion. While requiring professional, effective planning, hardscaping materials can help mitigate the risk of erosion on your property. Stone or concrete barriers, for example. can help solidify your ground for many years in areas where erosion is a potential threat.

Hardscapes give your property varying levels. With edges and walkways distinctly defined, you can add new dimension and layers to your property that otherwise would appear flat and far too open to the eye.  Other ways of creating this effect through hardscaping are installing a pergola, a courtyard wall, or boundary lines composed of stone.

Schedule a Quote from JJW Brick Today!

Give JJW Brick a call today to learn more about hardscape at 1-800-BRICK-PAVERS.  We look forward to hearing from you!

5 Things You Need to Know About Your Hardscape Project – Before the job begins 

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As you look out at your outdoor living space, you probably don’t’ distinguish between the aspects that are alive and those which aren’t. But, essentially, when you look at your landscaping and then your hardscaping, that’s what you’re doing. In effect, landscaping refers to those elements that are living. Your landscaping encompasses your trees, shrubs, flowers, and plants.

On the other hand, your hardscapes are those things that aren’t alive. They are the large, constructed projects that are typically connected to or associated with your home. Hardscapes include those things that are intended to give support to other structures such as your patio that may need to support your hot tub.

Even your driveway that supports your vehicles is considered a hardscape. It fits the bill, right? It’s somewhat attached to your home and support other things. This means that hardscapes are essential to a complete outdoor living space and it is vital that they are constructed with the highest possible quality of materials and expertise.

But how do homeowners – who typically are not a hardscape professional – know what technical information is vital in order to ensure the new hardscaping they’re installing will be constructed with the highest amount of professionalism, quality, and expertise?

Getting the following information – in advance – from the licensed contractor you are planning to hire, will help assure the quality and integrity of your next hardscape project.

Find out what base material will be used and its compaction process. A granular stone base should be the basic consistency of the base material to be used. This means that pea stone and slag sand do not meet the standards of acceptability. The base layer should be compacted while under construction which ideally is after every two to three inches of the base is installed.

Inquire about the quantity of base material that will be used. There is a range of base depths that goes from 4 inches to 12 inches based upon the traffic volume of the area and conditions of the soil.

Ask how the preparation for the sub-base and excavation is conducted. Ask if Geotextile fabric will be used and if so, where it will be used. In the case of a typical hardscape, the excavation should ensure that the hardscape is built on soil that is undisturbed.  Regarding sub-soils, what is called Geotextile fabric segregates the base materials. The sub-soils also have to be compacted.

When it comes to edge restraint, find out what material will be used. There are generally two choices – concrete or plastic, if you ask your contractor this question and the reply is concrete, you’ve been given an unacceptable answer. Concrete cracks – especially in four-season climates. It is widely recommended to use vinyl edge restraint and – in four-season climate – steel spikes are also widely recommended.

In addition, you’ll want to know the kind of jointing sand that will be used. When you ask this, you’ll want to hear Polymeric (acrylic) or standard angular jointing sand.

Schedule a Free Hardscape Quote Today!

Give JJW Brick a call today to learn more about hardscape design at 1-800-BRICK-PAVERS.  We can answer any questions that you may have and can discuss options that interest you regarding hardscape.

Here’s How Hardscape Is Different from Softscape

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A home’s outdoor living space consists of two elements: hardscape and softscape. As the name suggests, hardscape refers to the hard things present in your yard, such as brick, concrete, stone, etc. Softscape, on the other hand, includes soft stuff, such as bushes, plants, trees, etc. Softscape is made of living things, whereas the hardscape consists of non-living materials. Beautiful homes are those that can strike a balance between the hardscape and softscape. People fond of cars often turn their hardscape into magnificent driveways. While these driveways may seem impressive, they give a residential property a commercial flavor. Similarly, people fond of gardening fill up their outdoor space with gigantic trees and imposing bushes and shrubs, making their home look like a jungle. It is, thus, essential to not only strike the right balance between the hardscape and softscape, but care must also be taken to ensure one is not going over the top.

What Are Some of the Hardscape Elements?

To understand the clear difference between the two, let us dig a little deeper. Here are some of the things that fall under the purview of hardscape elements.

  • Hardscape refers to hard but movable things, such as paving, gravel, stones, etc. that fill the outdoor space.
  • Hardscape constitutes inanimate and non-living objects and thus, does not change with time.
  • Different types of hardscape materials impact the environment differently. For instance, pavements and stones do not let water get soaked into the soil and thus, increase runoffs, thereby increasing the chances of contaminants entering the water streams. Porous materials, on the other hand, allow water to get soaked into the soil and thus, reduce runoffs.
  • Other than stone, gravel, and pavings, patios, gazebos, decks, outdoor kitchens, and driveways are other common hardscape elements.
  • Hardscape elements can be both natural or humanmade.

What Are Some of the Softscape Elements?

Let us try and understand a little more about softscape elements.

  • Unlike hardscape elements, softscape elements are soft to touch.
  • Flowers, ground covers, shrubs, and trees make excellent softscape elements. However, since they are living objects, they evolve and change with time and thus, need proper care.
  • Softscape elements, such as trees and shrubs, are available in different sizes, textures, and shapes

Tips on How to Incorporate Hardscape and Softscape Features into Your Home

Here are a few tips to keep in mind while adding hardscape or softscape features to your home.

  • If you have a small house, use the vertical spaces for adding softscape features.
  • Add pedestals and container gardens to create the illusion of space in smaller homes.
  • Use hardscaping elements, such as a low retaining wall, to create extra space.
  • If you live in an area where the government has restricted water use, compelling you to reassess your outdoor softscape features, do not worry. You can continue to enjoy a beautiful garden by only making a few minor changes, For instance, if the water supply is an issue, consider replacing a few softscape features with hardscape elements. For example, you can replace the grass patch in your garden with hardscape materials, such as concrete, pavers, or granite. Add to this, some drought-tolerant plants. This way, you will be able to maintain a beautiful garden without needing too much water.

The Final Word

Softscape and hardscape features do not only add to the beauty of a home but also enhance its commercial value. We hope you will find our simple tips handy while adding hardscape and softscape features to your yard.

Schedule a Quote from JJW Brick Today!

Give JJW Brick a call today to learn more about hardscape at 1-800-BRICK-PAVERS.  We look forward to hearing from you!

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