Extended Patio Behind House With Sloping Garden

by Kate

Question For Retaining Walls and Patio Designs - Or Other Solutions

Hi - I'm in need of some advice please. We have a standard 3-bedroom semidetached house with a side entrance. The garden is 100ft in length, and sloping. At present we have a concrete side path which goes at right angles round the back of the house.

There is a small kitchen extension of about 10ft on the corner of the house where the path goes. The path extends along the back of the house and widens out into a small patio with the wall of the kitchen extension on one side, the french windows of the house along the back, and the boundary fence on the other side.

The open end looks out onto the garden. We are hoping to extend the depth of the path and the patio area by about 3m to give more room and a nice area to sit in, etc. The problem is that the house is higher than the garden, and the present path and patio are bordered on the garden side by a grassy slope with a drop of about 3ft to the lawn.

To extend the path and patio we would have to take it straight out over this slope and drop, presumably with some sort of retaining wall to square it off, and steps down to the lawn. The whole site slopes slightly, but there is much more of a drop at the top end by the house.

I have already bought the sandstone but do not know how to go about the construction of the patio. We have asked for a quote but did not receive any detail, only a large estimate! Obviously the footings and drainage would be an issue (how much to excavate, what to fill it with, compaction, type of drainage, etc), and also we have a small child (baby now, but soon walking).

What are the options for preventing a child (or anyone else for that matter) falling off the edge of the patio? We're not sure that a wall would look very nice, and would restrict the view down the garden from inside the house. Many thanks for your thoughts and advice.

Kate