Oh, woe is me! I'm feeling like an 'easy mark'. We are owners among other mostly Senior owners in a nice, but not plush, 310-unit complex on 23 acres: Maui Kamaole. These are primarily vacation rental condos with current market between $500K and $1M. (We're smallest.) The contractor can park on the internal access road 50 feet from the lanai to do the 14 X 17 X 5" pour if he uses a concrete pump fed through or over a low hedge. Removal of 120 sq ft of old 2 X 10 slabs would have to go to the end of the hedge via wheelbarrows -- maybe 150 ft. I don't know about disposal costs, but there are no building permits required. The contractor can park 10 feet from the courtyard gate to remove the concrete blocks there and pour 11 X 12 X 5". We may not do the walled courtyard. It exists primarily as a buffer between the condo BR and parking. There are about 300 random-shaped concrete blocks. I suppose they could be re-purposed. (I don't suppose they could be poured *over* to create a smooth, level surface? It's not as though we have freezing temps here.) My only similar cost comparison is the $8K we spent to tile the interior of our condo 11 years ago: 830 sq ft, laid on the diagonal w/tile 'baseboard'. The material was $3200 of that. I don't have a formal proposal yet. I'm hoping his $10K 'ballpark' for the lanai was intended to create a price from which he'll discount! I'm willing to pay somewhat more for a recommended contractor here, where there is a lot of fly-by-night, but...what would YOU pay?

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!

If you seal the concrete with "Wet Look" sealer it will make the entire stamped concrete look darker and bring out the contrast as well. Try a sample area to see if you like it.

Overlay would be done with Acrylic which if a good material is being used can be much stronger than concrete. You can get Acrylic that is 8500psi at 1/8th inch thick. Concrete is only 3600psi. So in the long haul Overlay should last a lot longer. Also gives you the opportunity to change if you would want to. If you stam,p the concrete and it cracks as they all do eventually, you are pretty much stuck with it. Overlay can be fixed, so I would have to agree that overlay is better.