24. Patio Porcelain Pavers
Over-rationalizing our paver selection.
Update: Feb 2nd 2024 — This post will remain for posterity, but it is no longer valid. Turns out that the great price we found for the paver was a mistake. The price was advertised as per piece, but they meant to say per square foot; that’s a big difference for a four square foot piece. Shame on the store for false advertising, and bummer for me to have to find another paver.
Here are our quotes and rationalization — perhaps a bit over-rationalization — for the porcelain pavers that we selected for our patio project.
Our new patio plan, which began with an unexpected deck demolition, culminated with a square patio located just outside our lounge room. This new patio combined with our old patio create two square patios that bookend the unexpected Koi pond we found hiding under the deck.
The existing corner patio is concrete, so our first idea for the new patio was for it to be a cast in place slab, but that process is not super DIY friendly. Then we landed on concrete pavers, and found an 15”x30” product at Lowe’s that we felt pretty good out, but did not love the price of each paver at nearly $20. We then checked the cost of porcelain pavers and discovered an option that had a similar cost per square foot to the concrete pavers. That was a light switch moment for us, and we have not looked back since.
Porcelain Pavers
Pros:
Durable
Thinner (about 3/4” thick) compared to concrete pavers (2”)
Finer finish compared to concrete pavers
Cons
Brittle
Hard to cut
Can be more expensive than concrete pavers
Paver Quantity
2x2 pavers seem to be fairly common with porcelain pavers, so we updated our design to use this size of tile with a staggered layout pattern.
The area of the patio is 288 square feet / 4 square feet = 72 pavers + 10% (8) = 80 pavers
We will need to cut several of the pavers in half to get our staggered layout to work out. Fingers crossed that we don’t lose too many pavers in the process, since we are only getting 8 extra.
The Contenders
Much of our DIY shopping happens at Lowe’s and Home Depot, but we have started to venture out to different local sources. It has been great to shop around since savings can be significant. There are lots of gray porcelain pavers to choose from, we narrowed it down to these three.
Satori - Sendero Mica
Source: Lowe's
80x$20 = $1,600
MSI Arterra Blue Stone
Source: SiteOne
80*$10.04 = $803
MSI Arterra Beton Antracite
Source: SiteOne
80*$33 = $2640
On-line vs In-person
It is so important to see a product in person, especially for a finishes. The on-line images we found for these products tended to look more saturated and uniform compared to how they looked in person.
In-person, the Arterra Beton Antracite looked great. The Arterra Blue Stone was much more speckled and it had a rougher texture compared to the Beton.
Decision
We chose the Blue Stone, but it was not just because of the lowest cost.
Yes, we save significantly by going with the Blue Stone, but a delta of $1800 would have been worth it to us for a patio that we will live with for the rest of our lives. So, what else drove our decision?
We perceived that the Arterra tiles were higher quality than the Satori. We felt that the slip resistance and durability were similar between the Arterra options, so the remaining variable was aesthetic preference. While on its own, I may prefer the Beton, I needed to consider how well any finish will play with all of the other finishes that we have already committed to.
Reviewing the neighboring finishes
The first neighbor is paint. The paint color we have selected, and started using, for the house is the cool gray Benjamin Moore Graphite 1603 (website photo below). I could see this color working with both the Arterra paver options.
The second neighbor is the roof. When we did the roof remodel, we chose Owens Corning Estate Gray. Their on-line photo and an aerial for comparison; side note, notice how the marketing photos (again) tend to be darker than what we observe in the field. While we don’t really care what the birds think of our color selections, the roof is such a dominant feature on our house that it does impact the overall color mood of the house significantly. To my eye, the shingles tend to have a greenish/bluish tint. I think the Blue Stone may be a better complement to the roof tone than the Beton.
The last neighbor is the interior floor. In the future, hopefully not too distant future, we will renovate our lounge to replace the raised sliding doors with at-grade hinged doors that connect directly to the patio. We are taking a bit of a risk now by designing a patio that doesn’t perfectly work with our current house layout; what if the future renovation never happens? To our good fortune — or misfortune — the existing house already has so many odd details, that one more cannot hurt, too much.
The floor finish of the future at-grade lounge will not be wood like the rest of the house — we envision lots of kids and a dog running in and out of the pool with wet feet so we need the floor at the lounge to be extra durable. We are thinking it could be either polished concrete, terrazzo (the dream), or porcelain tiles (the most likely).
The patio is a direct extension of the lounge, so it makes sense for the two finishes to be related, but should they try to match?
As architects, we love to create perfect designs and in the custom homes designed for millionaires and billionaires, there is the budget to find just the perfect match. I think this level of perfection is too much for our Would-Be House.
So if it cannot match, best practice is to make it distinctly different. One of the worst design flaws I see is when something is just a bit off, making it look like a mistake.
Between the Beton and Blue Stone, I suspect the Beton would be a closer match to our future interior finish, which in this case could be a bad thing.
Rustification
Rustification is when something is made intentionally rough. You can see this strategy use in old buildings where the stones on a facade start rough at the bottom and get more refined the higher you go.
In our case, we won’t be going higher, but from outside to inside. We can use changes in size and texture of the tiles to amplify the difference between the interior and exterior.
The interior tile will be slightly smaller in size, refined, homogenous and smooth. The exterior paver will be larger, slightly rougher, speckled.
Winner
Combining this “distinctly different” strategy with rustification and my general color tone impressions, I think we have a winner.
The over-rationalized winner is Blue Stone.
My next step is to figure out what else needs to go on this paver order, better savings when you bundle.