Our Process

This modern-style house has one of the most common dilemmas when integrating the backyard and home together. The elevation of the pool area is about 2 ft lower than the level of the house. The patio was only about 10 ft away from the house originally. That does not allow enough room for entertainment space. 

In order to fix this problem, we had to do something different that our normal approach. Oftentimes we take steps down directly from the doors to have a large enough entertainment space. In this case, we chose to extend the Hardscape from the doors at the house level into the backyard to make the barbecue Lounge dining area one level. 

We were able to incorporate the elements of an outdoor entertainment space into the newly captured space by creating a retaining wall and leveling the entire area out and installing new large-format porcelain tile. We carried the porcelain tile down to the deck around the pool even onto the coping of the pool. We also installed a Schluter edge around the pool tile coping to finish the tile Edge along with a water wall on the back Bond beam of the pool. This created a nice feature facing the house that serves as a focal point and provides a soothing sound.