Your patio can become an extension of your living space, and accessible all year round with the many heating options available now. It can be significant room in your home without having to do any building work. Choosing the right concrete style for your patio depends on your lifestyle, entertainment needs, whether you have children, and even what you might use the patio for in the future.
What are your lifestyle needs?
Is your patio or veranda a place to entertain, relax, is it used as a playroom or an outdoor kitchen? Concrete surfaces can be rough or smooth, textured or plain. Smooth surfaces are more even for table legs and chairs, and if you have children using the space for play. But smooth surfaces don’t have as much grip as rougher surfaces. This doesn’t matter of you’ll only even use the patio as a place to sit and relax, but some customers want to convert their patios to carports in the future when the kids grow up and have cars of their own, or if they intend to buy a caravan. If this is the case, we need to ensure the concrete laid is a heavier duty grade to handle heavier traffic.
You’ll find more ideas here: Concrete Styles And Ideas For A Patio You’ll Love Spending Time In
Modern, mediterranean or traditional concrete styles?
Our stamped concrete range is available in slate, tile and cobbled styles, and these textured patterns create a warm and earthy feel in patios. There is a wide range of colours in these ranges to suit your home, from earthy tones, to cool stone or grey tones.
We’re often asked about the benefits of decorative concrete over pavers. Decorative concrete (which includes stamped concrete and exposed aggregate concrete) has many advantages over installing pavers including low maintenance, because there is no weeding to do between the pavers, and no subsidence as there is no movement as there is with individual paver blocks.
Read more about the benefits of decorative concrete here: 10 Reasons Why A Concrete Driveway Is Better Than A Paved One
You can find out more about our stamped concrete ranges here: Using Stamped Concrete To Create A Mediterranean Paradise In Your Backyard
Smooth or rough surface – what do you need?
This depends on the style of your home. You might associate smooth surfaces with modern homes, but our ranges of both smooth and textured concrete suit both modern and traditional homes.
We’ve used our handcrafted sawcut concrete (see below) in many traditional and heritage homes and the smooth finish lends itself to many styles.
If you have small children at home, then you might want to consider a smoother style concrete in case they fall over and scrape their knees. This is an important consideration because you want everyone at home – young and old – to feel safe and comfortable using their space as they need to.
If you plan to convert your patio to a shed or carport for heavier vehicles, then you may need a concrete style with more grip. Our concrete consultants provide this advice and guidance while helping you to choose the ideal concrete style for your patio.
Handcrafted sawcut concrete for both modern and traditional homes
One of our specialities is handcrafted saw cut concrete, which is smooth and sleek in appearance and looks like high end pavers or tiles but without the weeds and movement that can happen with paver blocks.
Handcrafted finishes are ideal for driveways and patios in contemporary and traditional homes.
Once we have poured the base and allowed it to harden, our specialist team will come back to saw-cut square or rectangular patterns into the top of the slab. Pattern sizes vary from 600mm to 300mm in size. Larger patterns will create a more expansive look and smaller patterns may suit heritage homes.
The concrete slab can have a smooth one-coloured appearance or an exposed aggregate milled finish. This allows small amounts of coloured aggregate to show through – but is smoother to walk on than traditional exposed aggregate finishes.
Read more about our Handcrafted Saw-Cut Concrete
Looking after your concrete
Do you need to reseal concrete?
We recommend sealing concrete every few years to ensure its longevity. You can buy the sealer and do it yourself at home if you don’t mind some handiwork, and we’ll give you instructions on how best to apply the sealer. Or you can ask Panorama Concrete to do it for you.
Do I Need To Seal My Concrete?
Concrete maintenance
There are several things you can do yourself at home before calling in professionals to take care of any serious concrete problems to keep your concrete looking as good as new.
Please read our blog about concrete maintenance which covers simple things such as removing stains immediately, and resealing regularly to prevent long term stains and erosion.
Concrete Maintenance: How To Keep Your Concrete Looking As Good As New Over Years
Start designing your patio with our expert concrete consultants today
We help many people create patios they love to spend time in and can help you design your patio offering ideas on concrete styles, retaining walls, planter boxes, firepits and more. Our concrete consultants will take the time to understand your lifestyle needs, today and in the future, and to choose a concrete style that will suit your home, your needs and your budget.
We have the only concrete display centre in Adelaide with stamped concrete, exposed aggregate and many other styles to view. We offer our customers a sample to take home and check that the colour and style chosen will be the perfect match they are looking for.
Please visit us at 1 Maple Avenue, Forestville, open Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5.30pm or call us on 08 8297 9611 to discuss your patio project with our expert team.