We went with stamped concrete in both the front (walkway) and back of our house (patio). The results were striking and, aesthetically, far superior to a basic gray concrete slab. It was one of the best choices we made when building our house. Since you can choose the color, it can really pull the presentation of the house together in a way that simple concrete cannot. In our case, we coordinated it with the color of both the house and the rockery. You can not only choose a base color, but an accent color as well. In addition, it provides visual interest not only through color and pattern, but in texture as well. It is critical that you find a subcontractor who is excellent at doing this work, however. If that is not available, it would be better for you to go with a concrete slab, since stamped concrete is pricy. It is really important to do your homework and to see as many actual samples of the personÂs work as possible. Be aware that different color combinations are priced differently. For example, red colors are much more expensive than those closer to grey. It snows here quite a bit, and I have not had any trouble shoveling our stamped concrete but there are a couple of things to consider. First, you cannot use an ice spade or a metal shovel on it (we have always used plastic anyway, so not an issue). Second, you cannot use salt on it to melt the ice. We use kitty litter instead, which works ok but not as well as salt. In terms of being in or out of vogue, you should do a bit of reading in the Kitchen forum, where avocado appliances are actually discussed and where the kitchen obsessed are seriously concerned about such things. Comments are made all the time about how granite countertops or stainless steel appliances or cherry cabinets will be the next avocado appliance. I have all three and laugh when I read such things. The consensus response to such worries really gets to the heart of the issue: go with what you like or enjoy. What matters is not how cool your neighbors or your friends or your family thinks your house is, because they do not live there. What matters is that you get to live in a house surrounded by things you love. If you make choices based on what "they" think, you will end up living in "their" house... not your own.

You know, it's interesting how when we travel to Europe or other parts of the world where we can see buildings several hundred years old, we appreciate the patina of age on things -- plaster showing its age, cracked stone paving, irregular color in brick, time-worn marble, and so on. In the US we always want to rip out the old, solid materials because of minor imperfectons, and replace them with something shiny, new, and not necessarily of equal quality. If there is a real problem with your tiles -- undermined and unstable surface, safety issues, water leaks, or whatever -- sure, replace them. But otherwise the older material has charm that pavers do not have, in particular with your nice brick wall and balusters. You'd want all your architectural elements to be speaking the same language.

We can argue all day long whether it is good or bad. It really won't solve anything. You either got what you paid for or you did not. Getting disinterested parties to fire you up, or console you, agree that it is good or bad is not going to change the outcome. You have to decide what if anything you can do to resolve it or accept it. If you chose to accept it, then go on with your life. If you don't want to accept it, then try to figure out how you think it ought to be resolved and pursue that avenue and see where it takes you. This is solving nothing except putting time between the job and the complaint making it more difficult to resolve. If you do nothing else, write down all of your concerns in a letter to him and keep a copy for yourself just incase.

You're welcome! maire_cate - No pool, but the existing patio does get slippery when wet, especially when I am in flip flops. tinam61 - Our patio was poured, and then it was suppose to be acid stained. Instead, they rolled some type of stain on top, and then sealed it. As I said, the inside has held up with two more applications of sealer in the last 5 years. The outside has actually been re-stained (after the first season and flaking began)and has been sealed 4 times. Yes, the overlay has color applied before the epoxy is poured. Are you thinking of having the lower driveway done with stamped concrete, or brick pavers? If you are in an area that gets lots of snow (and salt) I would not try the stamped concrete. My neighbor has has his torn up and redone, and still had it ruined over the winter with the salt trucks. susieq07 - I've seen your driveway before. You've had that quite a while. Has it held up well? Talked to DH today. We are going to wait for the estimates to come back on our project. If the numbers are within our budget, I think we are going to go ahead and either add to the existing pad before having a coating put on it, or tear the pad up and pour a larger pad. We could also do pavers instead of a concrete pad. Maybe the yard would not get as torn up if we are just taking out the old pad, and not having to have a new pad poured. Again, it all depends on the expense and our budget. I wish for a larger patio to be able to serve our needs. Here is the rest of what we are doing. Pergola will be attached to house. So instead of four columns, we will have two. This will improve our siteline from the house and screen porch. From backyard looking at patio and screened porch From backyard with pergola mock-up From backyard with pergola, grill enclosure and fireplace mock-up Fireplace and/or pergola examples that I like. We are not sure whether to go with brick to match our house (if we can find it) and use stone accents like this. There would be seats on either side and the chimney will be higher to tie in with pergola. I like this the best, but chimney would not be quite this tall because we will have gas. Take away the two columns, and scaled down a bit, plus add the seats. Original dream photo. I've hung onto this for a couple of years. Saw this at General Shale yesterday and was determined that this was it! Today, I am having second thoughts that it may be TOO formal. Plus, the white detailing may become a headache for cleaning. I think that I'd rather go with detailing like the following photo, whether used with stone or brick. Did I tell y'all that we will also be improving the looks of the screened porch post? Instead of the solid paint stain on rough treated post, and the vinyl cladding on the outside of the porch, we will have the post re-wrapped with a smooth paintable wood and then redo the screening and trim them out. Again, this is something with can put on the back burner if needed. After all, I just stained the post last summer. Throw in some landscaping, lighting and furniture, we will be all done!