Entertaining in Farmington

This project was designed around the client's desire to have an outdoor living space that was an extension of the home, but was big enough to entertain many people. They explained to me their needs and how they wanted to use the new space. After a few meetings and sketches, I came up with this design to incorporate all of the intended uses.

There was a significant hillside that had to be reshaped and required a retaining wall to terrace it. This actually worked to our advantage because we built the fire pit area right into the wall- recapturing some of the cost of the wall for a useful feature. I elected to keep the grilling station and the bar separate not only for visual balance, but for functionality. There would have just simply been too many functions clustered around one central feature. The bar doubles as the serving area for the living space under the canopy and the fire pit and dining areas lay just beyond. An extensive drainage system was installed to deal with runoff from the patios, gutters and wall drains.

One concern the clients had from the beginning was the fact that the only lawn space they had was going to be used for the new living space. Midway through the project, the clients realized that this grass would be missed more than they thought and decided to recapture some property that was otherwise wasted. In order to add back some lawn space, a significant amount of fill was removed and an upper level wall was built. The whole back yard was then re-turfed for an instant green lawn.

At the end a comprehensive lighting package was also installed - after we demonstrated the dramatic effect night lighting has!