Porcelain is pretty tough stuff, and really outside it just needs to be water and sun resistant, and I would think it would be fine, but you need to check with a couple other tile places to be sure. We went a different route with ours. We had the concrete taped into flagstone shapes, then sprayed with 3 different colors of stain, sprinkled with light glitter (like you see when the sun catches glints on natural rock). They then pulled up the tape which mimics grout, sealed it all, and we get tons of compliments on it.

Thank you for your reply. We did think about extending it out till the pool but first its costing us a lot compared to Kool deck and secondly the wood tile gets too hot and slippy near the pool. would just doing the covered patio area a brown wood tile and the rest of the pool decking an off white kool deck look bad?

They must be rated for EXTERIOR use and have a very HIGH antislip rating! All the photos I'm seeing are INTERIOR shots. You would do much better if you would visit a commercial flooring company and ask them for their recommendations. You have 3 tricky situations: #1: COMMERCIAL installation #2: Indoor-outdoor requirements (that's a toughy) #3: WET area (really need the antislip rating) Because of all three issues, I HIGHLY recommend you work with a local commercial flooring company. A forum such as this is going to have limited technical support for a tricky install which is fraught with legal liability issues. There are options out there...but they won't be found on-line or at Home & Decor. These will have to be professionally sourced through a commercial flooring company....and installed by the same professionals.

We finally decided on white pea gravel, and while it took quite a while to find a supplier (all garden stores nearby were sold out), we're delighted with how it turned out. When weeds pop through we can dig them out (decided on no landscaping fabric), and the kids have decided that gravel is almost as much fun as sand to play with (not to mention it doesn't get tracked in the house as easily.) On dark or rainy days - quite common here - the white reflects some light into the house, unlike the old bricks which just got darker and felt gloomy. We left the brick pathway to the door for now, as well as enough to be a border and hold the gravel in place, so we still have solid walkways and aren't worried the gravel will wash away. The curve of the brick path and the uneven border of old bricks means the patio is an odd shape, which I'm not sure about but my husband likes. The gravel is not as soft as grass, but isn't too painful for walking across barefoot to the table and chairs. I had planned to just do the main patio, and see about the rest of the space later, but we ordered so much my husband got inspired and cleared out the mud and brick pit near the door. That's now a play place for the kids; they love having their own little space and we love that they're happy and that the toys don't get scattered everywhere! For anyone who's interested, we ordered 8-16mm size gravel, at a weight of 600kg (more than 1200lbs), and it cost under 140 euros, including delivery. For convenience we had it delivered in a pallet of 20kg bags instead of the cheaper bulk bags since our back yard is hard to access. That amount covered the lower part of our garden nicely with plenty left over, so I may use that in the the back muddy area, which is currently just hosting ivy and old kids' toys. We layered the gravel at about 1-2 inches deep, but if that's not enough (or if it shifts too much) we may add more or try using the honeycomb-shaped gravel stabilizer grids. So far the amount seems fine for light traffic and playing, and hasn't been too wobbly for our patio furniture. It took months to figure out what we wanted and where to buy it, but in the end it ticked all the boxes: low maintenance, child friendly, not exorbitant, practical for walking on. And as as bonus, every time I look outside it reminds me of an Italian or French garden, which makes me want to brew a cappuccino and go enjoy some sunshine. Thank you to everyone for the input and ideas; may all your design dilemmas have happy endings.