Tag Archives: 9trees

Front Walkway, Steps, and Porch – December 2021

Similar to the back patio, we had needed for several years to make improvements to our front walkway. The mortar was crumbling between the bricks and it was literally beginning to fall apart. Our single step had sunk a few inches, about the spacing of one brick, making going up and down the step more of a hazard as it was steep walking up or down!

One of the biggest changes Kevin wanted to make was to enlarge our steps and porch area so that it took up the entire width of the bump out at the front door. We also wanted a larger walk leading to the step itself. We are super happy with how it all turned out and that it was able to be done yet this year – in the month of December nonetheless! We also added up lighting on the house, down lights on the steps, and up lighting to a couple of trees in the front yard as well.

Choosing the color for the front was rather challenging as our brick is a funky color to try to coordinate with. Amy came over and helped us narrow down our options and we selected a particular paver only to find out there wasn’t enough inventory to do our project and no more was going to be produced. Ugh! So Matt gave us a few other options and we chose a new color, but it wasn’t going to be available until the 3rd week of December. However, after the walkway around to the back patio was complete we looked at how the walk looked alongside the chimney area we thought it looked like it went really well. So we yet again hit up 9Trees and asked to change the paver to the same Fossil color we used in the back.

And now for the pictures!

Patio Project – November 2021

We finally decided to embark on an outdoor patio improvement project this year. This is something Kevin and I had dreamt of being able to do for years. We began by having Troy Richards (the spouse of Millcreek Herb grower Laura) who is a registered Landscape Architect come over to walk around our yard and talk through some ideas we had for both the patio and the front walkway (which will be a separate post). From there he put together an architectural drawing of our property, including existing landscaping and the house, etc.  We reviewed the patio design and made a few tweaks. Next, I reached out to 9Trees and a couple other local hardscape companies. Matt from 9Trees quickly responded and came over for a site visit and put together a quote. That all happened in early June, and they were scheduling about 5-6 months out! He put us on the books for early November (the earliest they had) as we were eager to get this project done yet this year.

We were looking for a spacious outdoor patio with a couple of different areas – one for sitting and hanging out including having a seat wall (possibly a fire pit to come), a pavilion and eating/bar area, and a built-in grill and other kitchen items. We also included a nice walkway over to the gate and through to the driveway. We also included lighting on the seating wall, bar counter area, and walkway lights as well. And we put in several up lights to illuminate the trees in the back yard.  9Trees crew of Jason, Devon, and Matt did a really great job. We made several adjustments during the project (changing the area under the kitchen bay window, the curve at the porch/start of the walkway, and extended the bar/counter a bit beyond the pavilion post near which it originally ended in our drawing/original concept, and enlarging the walkway where it meets at the driveway) and these guys just roll with the punches and do really great work. Berlin Gardens came and installed the pavilion in less than a day! Kevin plans to build our table for under the pavilion and we’ve already received our 12 chairs for the table area and 8 counter stools. Now the pictures can tell the story!