I live where land is cheap so it's not often I deal with small spaces. I always thought that scale was even more important for small gardens, with particular attention to the space allotted to plants versus that for people. Features such as a bench should have enough room not to be cramped, but take up no more than they need. Then there is the concept of depth or distance. There are some tricks. On cars, a clear top coat of paint makes the underlying color coat look very deep when in fact it's not. In a small garden one might review how a landscape artist develops a sense of depth to the painting. Distance things are painted with less color saturation, less contrast, and a more muted form and texture. Near objects are painted with the style reversed. Use this trick around the perimeter to make the lack of a generous bed depth to look greater. Thus any walls or fences should have a bland neutral look, and the plants against it should not stand out. Put the color and interesting textures to the front of the beds.

If you are thinking of filling a gunite pool with soil, as if it never existed, contact your ordinance guy first. In MI, if you try it, the concrete walls must be broken to 4 feet, REMOVED, the bottom broken, and the proper permits must be obtained. I would hate to see you do this work, and then have to dig it all out again. See other people's activities on this subject in pool forum. I remember someone in the newspaper turning the deeper part of their pool into a native pond (fish, plants, etc) and the ordinance guys stopped him. That being said, the fill must be installed & compacted in layers, with the top 12" being good soil. You Don't want it become a sink hole area later as the soil settles.

I'm in the middle of doing this right now for our diy kitchen. There is a large dealer - wholesaler - in our area with a huge warehouse. The slabs are tagged with price categories, but they won't sell directly to customers and they won't disclose the actual dollar amounts. They told me that the ultimate price varies depending upon which fabricator - cutter/installer - one uses. What they will do is send a list of the slabs that you have selected to any number of fabricators of your choice. They also won't help you pick a fabricator or say which are good or not so good. They would anger their client base if they did so. They will say that some are more expensive and some do better work. When you go to a fabricator, they will also have a selection of slabs, depending upon the size of their facility. You may notice that the slabs have paper tags indicating which wholesale yard they came from. There are typically slabs from several dealer/wholesalers at a fabricator's site. The fabricator may buy and import directly as well. I just spent many days with a friend who was looking for remnants for two bathrooms. It was a good education and a dry run for me. Got to browse with no pressure, and learned about the various places in our area.

I am laying down some pavers just to play around with design ideas, and I have a few photos showing the design elements below. I have some design questions. The basic design I want to pursue is to have a commercial paver patio and place a border around this of yellow real granite cobblestone. The cobblestone is too difficult to install and it would also be harder to walk on, so I am reserving it for strategic use as a border only, in order to make the patio look more custom than a pure paver design would suggest. So 90% of the patio will be commercial pavers, and maybe 10% will be a small border of cobblestones. The total patio dimensions are something around 10' x 10' (100 square feet). These cobblestones are about four inches cubed (4"x4"x4"), whereas the commercial pavers are Belgard Marseilles Stone (7"x7"x2"). The pavers serve as a walkway to a bench, from a walking path. Behind the bench, I have a small plastic storage bin that holds some accessories for the bench, like cushions which I want to keep out of the rain and elements. The questions: * What are some general design guidelines for how wide the patio should be, relative to the width of the bench that the patio is serving? I was figuring that the patio might extend about 12 inches on either side of the bench legs. Maybe more is better? * How should I provide the best base floor for the end pieces of the heavy concrete bench? The bench is made of concrete and the two end pieces are separate from the top piece. The bench is either bolted together, or some designs just use gravity to hold the heavy parts in place. As a result, the surface under the end pieces must be very flat and stable. If I put the end pieces on top of those patio pavers - which have an unfinished and rough textured surface - that is not an ideal platform for the bench. One solution would be to use a different paver design in just the area where the bench will live. I could use a paver that is perfectly flat in just the area where the bench is installed. But doing this will impact the aesthetics of the patio if the bench is later removed. I could lay some "flat" pavers down on top of the patio, thus providing a slightly elevated but relatively flatter surface for positioning the bench. But I am not sure that looks aesthetically pleasing, as those elevated pavers will be visible when the bench is in use. Another solution would be to "end" the patio just prior to the bench, then use a different paver install just under the bench end pieces. That would allow me to put those pavers in the ground and they would be better hidden while the bench is in use. But if the bench is removed later the pavers next to the patio might look a bit strange. One advantage to ending the patio prior to the bench install is that the cobblestone border of the patio would be fully visible on all four edges of the rectangular patio while viewing the patio and bench from the walking path. Otherwise, the back border of the patio would disappear behind the bench. * A similar question exists for the table surface in front of the bench, which is also made from concrete. Should I just attempt to stabilize it on top of the commercial pavers, or should I design in some flatter surface in the center of the patio and set up the table on that? I suppose I could put in some concrete tiles in that area with a pattern on them, to provide a kind of centerpiece to the patio. * In terms of the cobblestone border, I took one photo of the yellow tone cobblestones. I am thinking about sizing the border with two four-inch cobbles, creating approximately an eight-inch border section around the patio. What do others think of that use of the cobblestones? I could increase the border size to 12 inches or 16 inches. * I am also interested in opinions on possibly increasing the spacing between the cobbles in the border and planting ground cover there. If the groundcover takes off and overgrows the cobbles then that might tend to hide the natural beauty of the grain in the granite cobblestones.