Patios — Pretty and Private
Patio living is a highlight of summer in Crystal Valley. Creating privacy for family dining, entertaining and relaxing requires a little effort, a little money and some inspiration from the pros. Check out these ideas — from easy DIY spray-painted drop-cloth curtains, to living walls of color and greenery.
Vertical Greenery
We love Martha Stewart. And while most of her recipes require a long list of ingredients and lots of prep time, her wall of ivy seems like a snap. Using six copper gutters, some chain and ceiling hooks she created pretty three-tiered planters. Once filled with trailing plants (like ivy, weeping rosemary or cascading aubrieta) the gutters become a living screen that creates privacy and a pretty backdrop. Martha’s one important parting tip is to use lightweight perlite potting soil and avoid overwatering.
Wall of Wattle
Wattle fencing originated in England and it’s woven with willow or hazel branches, but it can incorporate a variety of other branches you’d find outdoors, like oak, elder and ash. The screen featured at Apartment Therapy would take prebuilding a wooden frame with evenly spaced vertical posts, but it’s an inexpensive screen option because most of the material is trimmings. Check out some of these wattle wonders on Pinterest for more ideas.
Faux Fence
For more of a finished fence-looking screen that nearly encloses your deck or patio living area, Family Handyman experts created a semi-complex wooden project. If you’re handy with power tools this one’s striking when completed. The cost for a 12’ x 7’ partition is between $100 and $500 and most of the job involves cutting the boards to length and screwing them together. Family Handyman has a tutorial to help you lay out the boards for perfect positioning.
Burst of Bamboo
Bamboo is a quick solution for creating a privacy screen and buffering noisy neighbors. Technically, it is giant grass and the shoots that sprout up can grow 12 inches in a single day. The common running “fish pole” bamboo can easily reach up to 15 feet tall, but you’ll want to plant it in big containers, like wine barrels. In the ground, the roots can travel as far as 20 feet or more and grow out of control. But in a barrel, bamboo makes a pretty, exotic screen. Tagawa Gardens in Parker/Centennial has five different types of bamboo for your privacy pleasure.
Drop Cloth Curtains
These DIY curtains are fashionable, customizable and easy to paint, hem and hang for less than $20. Corey Willis, of Hey There, Home, has a step-by-step tutorial to make custom outdoor curtains for $10 a panel. You’ll need something to hang them from, like a pergola or patio roof, and a sewing machine to hem the drop cloths once they’re painted. Corey coordinated paint colors with her Adirondack chairs and her number one tip is: don’t skimp on painters’ tape!
About that Pergola
If you don’t have a pergola and are curious about what it might cost to build one, we checked with Angie’s List and Family Handyman and for a basic 10-by-10 pergola using cedar. Expect to pay $3,000 for materials and $500 for labor. That isn’t that much more than a DIY job, unless you’re interested in using more expensive materials like ipe or teak. The price for exotic-wood, high-end installations can run up to $5,000 for materials and $750 to $1,000 in labor.
Lowe’s has a matte-black steel pergola for $398 if that price is more to your liking, or you might want something like the rust-proof, weather-proof maintenance-free pergolas from Detroit Garden Works.
Patio Possibilities in Crystal Valley
Patios and decks are the place to be during the summer in the master-planned community of Crystal Valley in Castle Rock! Check out the beautiful selection of new home designs from Richmond American Homes, available in ranch or two-story models and priced from the high $300s. And – coming soon – new homes by D.R. Horton and Kauffman Homes!
