Creating a patio is a cost-effective way to expand your usable living space! It turns part of your backyard into an outdoor room with an easy-to-manage hard surface on which you can place a grill, patio furniture, and other accessories for al fresco entertaining. If you’ve never created a DIY patio before, you may need a little extra help to get started. That’s why we’re here, to guide you through the proper way to measure for a patio.
How Much Space Is Available?
Before you start calculating the square footage of your patio and calculating the number of pavers you’ll need, you have to do some preliminary planning. First of all, take a walk through your yard. Hopefully, you already know the general drainage patterns of your lawn, how it handles the flow of rainwater. You don’t want to construct your patio in a place that will block that drainage and create water retention issues.
Once you’ve found the prime spot for the patio, determine how much of the available space you want to use. Do you want to eliminate most of the grass in favor of hardscape? Do you need to leave plenty of grassy space for kids, pets, or aesthetic purposes? Once you’ve answered those questions, you’ll have a better idea of how big your patio can be.
How Big a Patio Do You Need?
Another important consideration is how you plan to use the patio. Are you planning to have just a couple of lounge chairs, or maybe a pair of upright chairs and a grill? If so, you can probably get away with 25-50 square feet. If you’re planning on four chairs and a table, or two chairs and a couch, you’ll be inching closer to 100-130 square feet.
You can find online calculators to help you gauge how much space you’ll need. Or, if you already have your grill and your outdoor furniture, try setting it out on the grass in the space where you want to create the patio. Make sure that you leave plenty of space for seating, walking, and safety purposes. Mark the perimeter of the layout with string and stakes.
How to Measure Carefully
Square footage is calculated by multiplying the width of the patio by its length. So if you already know you’ll need about 70 square feet of space, you can divide that amount by 10 and establish that your patio needs to be 7 feet by 10 feet. If you’re using the layout method, setting your furniture on the grass and measuring around it, you’ll need to use the stakes-and-string method to measure the area.
Place your initial stake near your home or building. Create a line with string, parallel to the line of the house, then plant your second stake. Be sure your string is tied nice and tight between them. Take another string straight out from the first stake, creating a 90-degree angle to your original parallel string.
Once you’ve gone about far enough to encompass the planned layout of your furniture, insert your third stake. Now you have one corner and two sides of your patio marked out, and the rest is simply a matter of measuring those first two strings. If the first string is 10 feet long, and the second is 7 feet long, you’ve got a 70-square-foot patio in progress.
Measure carefully and ensure crisp 90-degree corners as you plant the fourth stake and attach the remaining strings. You’ll probably need a helper for this part. Once you’ve got the area marked off, leave your string frame in place as a guide for when you begin patio installation.
Remember, Kurtz Bros., Inc. has you covered! We’ve got all the patio building supplies you’ll need, including pavers, tools, and more. Feel free to browse our website and order, or contact us anytime with your questions!