Outdoor living

The outdoor living work is where a Kansas City yard stops being something you look at and starts being somewhere you sit.

Almost every one of these projects begins the same way: a family has a patio they never use, or a slope they cannot use at all, and one fixed idea about what would change that. Usually a fire pit. Often an outdoor kitchen.

Because we design and build in one company, the whole thing gets planned before anything is dug. Gas and power runs, footings for the fireplace, the fall on the patio, the height of the seat wall, and where the chairs will actually go. That is the difference between a fire pit that gets used every weekend and one that sits at the wrong end of the yard.

Fire features

We build full masonry fireplaces with a hearth and chimney, and open fire pits set flush into the patio. Square and round, wood-burning and gas, in cut stone, boulder and manufactured block. Where there is room we wrap a curved seat wall around the pit at seating height, which adds seating for eight without adding furniture.

Kitchens and grill islands

Built-in grill islands with counter space, storage and bar seating, finished in the same stone as the surrounding hardscape so the island reads as part of the patio rather than an appliance parked on it.

Under-deck and covered space

On the walk-out lots that are common across Johnson County, the space under an existing deck is the cheapest square footage a house has. Graded, drained and paved, it becomes the shaded half of the yard.