Visually Connect Your Troy, MI, Outdoor Fireplace and Brick Patio With These 5 Ideas

Visually connecting the various masonry features of your landscape involves creating continuity between masonry features to help a landscape feel purposeful and appear pleasing. The integration of an outdoor fireplace with a brick patio could be your focus in masonry design, since this is where most backyard activities will happen. This spring, you can visually connect your Troy, MI, outdoor fireplace and brick patio with these five ideas.

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Choosing complementary pavers and wall units is by far the best way to connect various features. Most manufacturers will have paver and wall unit styles that are designed to go together. But if you love one manufacturer’s pavers and another’s wall units—and the colors and textures work together—then you could choose a unifying element in the form of a decorative border or accent to tie the two features together. For example, a red brick patio and a fireplace made with distressed concrete blocks could be tied together with a different color brick accent: a border on the patio area, and decorative inlays on the fireplace.

Aspects to consider when choosing complementary pavers and wall units include color, texture, finish, and size and proportion.

Colors

Since you’re using different materials, making color choices that are a shade or two different is the easiest way to tie these two prominent elements together but still give them their own character.

In general, stick to color temperature pairings: warm/warm or warm/neutral, and cool/cool or cool/neutral. Pairing warm tones such as reds with cool tones can be done, but be sure to expose material samples to sunny, shady, dry, and wet conditions because the colors will appear different—sometimes dramatically so—in various conditions and you want the colors to look great together no matter the lighting or weather.

Textures

In general, avoid huge differences in textures. You can have a smooth patio surface and a rough-hewn fireplace, but if this is the choice then consider using smooth accents in the fireplace to tie the two together.

Moderate textures can work well together as long as they’re not exactly the same, and as long as you’re using slightly different colors so the result doesn’t look like a surrealist painting where the floor suddenly tilts up to become a vertical element.

Finishes

Finishes should also be complementary. If one element is sleek and shiny and the other is matte or distressed, it could be too much visually. Aim for similar sheens and finishes that say, “We belong together.”

Size and Proportion

The size and proportion of your pavers and wall units are ideally compatible. Think large and low, tall and small. In other words, avoid placing very large wall units next to small pavers, although the opposite (small wall units and large format pavers) can work very well because large format pavers help anchor the fire feature.

Hub Identity

The term “hub identity” is sometimes used in landscaping to describe how a feature relates to its surrounding environment. Whether it’s located at the center of everything or in a secluded corner, the outdoor fireplace will always act like a magnet.

And since it’s a magnet, you can embrace the individuality of your fireplace and let the patio play a supporting role.

You can have an outdoor fireplace that is a bold stand-alone focal point that is very different from the surrounding materials. As long as you keep the above tips in mind, your fireplace will have its own character as a stand-out feature, but it’ll look right at home on your patio.

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