What hardscape installation covers
Hardscape is the built structure of a landscape: the patios, steps, seat walls, fire features, and outdoor kitchens that give a yard rooms and edges. The materials range from segmental concrete block and manufactured pavers to natural stone, and Georgia is granite country, so cut and fieldstone show up often in the work. What matters more than the surface you see is the base you do not. A patio or wall is only as sound as the compacted aggregate under it, and on Atlanta’s clay that base has to be built deliberately or the whole thing heaves and settles with the first wet winter.
We excavate to depth, lay geotextile fabric where the subgrade is soft, and build the base up in compacted lifts rather than dumping it in one pass. Slopes are set so water runs off the surface and away from the house, not toward it. Vertical work like seat walls and steps is set on the same principle, footing first, and tied together so it reads as one built element. Where a wall retains soil, weep points and gravel backfill give trapped water somewhere to go, since the hydrostatic pressure behind a wall is what pushes it out of plumb over the years. Handled this way, a hardscape is a structure, not a decoration, and it holds its line for decades.
Our process for this service
01 · Layout and excavation. We mark the footprint, check the fall of the land, and excavate to the depth the design and the soil require, which is deeper than most homeowners expect.
02 · Base and compaction. We place geotextile where needed and build the aggregate base in lifts, compacting each one, so the finished surface sits on engineered ground instead of loose fill.
03 · Setting units. We set pavers or stone on a screeded bedding layer, working to consistent joints and true levels, with cuts made clean at the edges and around features.
04 · Jointing and finish. We lock the surface with polymeric sand or mortar as the material calls for, set edge restraints, compact again where appropriate, and wash the work down.
What’s included
A hardscape project includes the materials, the base and drainage work that most of the budget honestly should go toward, and the finish detailing at the joints and edges. Because one team designs, builds, and maintains, the patio is drawn to suit the planting around it and the grades of the whole yard, not dropped in as an afterthought. We would rather spend an extra day on the base you never see than come back to relevel a surface that was rushed, and the continuity means someone who understands how it was built is the one who cares for it later. Curing and settling take their own time, so we tell you when a mortared surface is ready for weight and furniture rather than rushing you onto it.
Where we work
We build hardscapes across the north metro, from Alpharetta and Milton over to Johns Creek, where larger lots and rolling grades put a premium on base work and drainage. Sloped sites in particular reward the extra excavation, because a patio cut into a hillside lives or dies on how well the ground beneath it was prepared.