Landscaping
Outdoor rooms with the gas and the power already in them
Kitchens, fire features and terraces — the masonry and the landscape designed together, because they are the same structure.
The problem
You want somewhere to actually spend an evening outside — cooking, sitting by a fire, having people over — and not a slab with furniture on it.
An outdoor kitchen or fire feature is masonry with utilities in it, and the utilities are what get missed. Gas has to be run and sleeved before the base goes down. Electric for lighting and outlets, the same. Anything with water needs a drain and needs to be winterised, because a line left charged through a Hudson Valley January splits. Retrofitting any of that means cutting up a finished patio.
The other thing that decides whether these spaces get used is where they sit. A fire pit downwind of the seating is a fire pit nobody sits at. A grill against the house needs clearance and a hood or an open side. A terrace on the shaded north side of a house in this climate is cold from September. None of that is expensive to get right at the drawing stage and all of it is expensive afterwards.
Built as masonry: block or steel core, veneer to match whatever the patio and the house are doing, real counter material rather than something that will not take a freeze, and a firebox lined for the temperatures it will actually see.
What the work includes
- Outdoor kitchens and grill surrounds
- Wood and gas fire pits, and masonry fireplaces
- Seating walls and integrated benches
- Multi-level terraces and step systems
- Pergolas and shade structures
- Gas, electric and water rough-in before the surface goes down
- Landscape lighting for evening use
What you end up with
A space that gets used after dark and in October — with the gas, power and drainage already in it rather than surface-mounted afterwards.
How long it takes
A fire pit built into an existing patio is a few days. A full outdoor kitchen with utilities is three to six weeks including the rough-in and any inspections, and it wants to be scheduled alongside the patio rather than after it.
Where we do outdoor living spaces
Across Putnam and northern Westchester County. The ground is not the same in all four of these towns and it changes how this work gets built — each page says what changes there.
Usually goes with
These three come up on the same properties often enough that it is worth pricing them together rather than twice.
Get a outdoor living spaces estimate
Tell us what you are trying to do and we will come and look at it. Free written estimates, no obligation.