31 Paver Patio Ideas to Turn Your Backyard Into a Showpiece Oasis

Whether you have a clear preference for your paver patio or are still in the process of choosing your style, exploring various paver patio ideas can be helpful. You’ll probably see many paver patio ideas that you immediately know are not for you. The good news? There’s a paver patio out there for everyone, and you’ll likely eventually find yourself drawn to certain styles for your own backyard oasis. Let’s take a look at a collection of ideas from general layouts and elements to patterns and step styles.

Paver Patio Layout Ideas

You probably already know the area in your backyard where you envision your patio  and the boundaries and limits you’re working within, so now it’s time to generate ideas for what you want the patio to look like. It’s important to consider what you want to use the space for and what you’ll need:

• How often do you entertain?

• Do you want a fire pit? 

• Can you have a fire pit?

• What’s your budget?

• Does the grade of your lawn require landscaping or an elevated patio?

• Do you need steps at your patio door?

It helps to figure out what you want, then price the materials or get estimates to have a paver patio installation contractor do the job. If you end up over budget, scale back until the patio design and your budget meet at an acceptable compromise. You may also want to check into the cost of installing a concrete patio for comparison.

Outdoor Grill and Kitchen Area

Installing a kitchen and grill area with your patio creates an additional outdoor living space for entertaining. Grill surrounds and countertop areas are often built with landscape blocks that complement the pavers used for the patio. The countertop can be a natural limestone, poured concrete, or even quartz or granite. The options are endless here: you can add on a  refrigerator, wet bar, smoker, grill, griddle, and more.

Seat Walls and a Fire Pit

Fire pits add a more recreational element to your patio that’s perfect for gatherings or just relaxing after a family dinner. Seat walls help define the space and provide functional, ever-ready seating for guests. The post caps and wall caps provide contrasting colors and textures against the wall, posts, and paver patio, while also coordinating with the design of the fire pit to tie the project together. Borders help define the space and add a finished look overall.

When designing a fire pit for the patio, make sure your local ordinances allow for permanent fire pits and that the feature is far enough away from the house to avoid smoke blowing into open windows.

Set-Back Fire Pit Gathering Area

If you have the space and the landscaping to work around, as in this photo, you can push the fire pit and patio out into the yard. This can help avoid any issues with the fire being too close to the house and give more privacy. The meandering walks leave landscape openings, but could just as well be filled in to create another patio space for a dining set or swing closer to the deck or back porch.

On-Grade Extended Patio and Fire Pit with Seat Wall

This homeowner decided to add an on-grade patio with a fire pit and seat wall to an existing deck. Installing the patio on-grade gives separation from the deck, in addition to the difference in materials and color schemes. The charcoal border and black landscape mulch complements the dark roof, tying the yard together.

Patio Space Defined by Perimeter Landscape Walls

In this patio space, the landscape walls and posts help to delineate the space, giving the sense of enclosure and privacy. The wall does have an opening in the middle, allowing access to the yard without having to walk around the wall at either end of the patio. The gray and tan hues in the wall blocks and patio pavers tie in nicely with the house’s beige siding.

Round Semi-Recessed Patio with Retaining Walls and Boulder Fire Pit

This patio with a fire pit is carved into the upward-sloping grade so that half of the patio is even with the grade. Meanwhile, the retaining wall holds back the soil, providing an interesting effect as the top of the seat wall is flush with the grade. Not only does this provide visual appeal and functions as seating, but it solves a grade issue that would otherwise require a lot of landscaping and excavation to taper gradually enough out toward the stacked wood and trees. Although many paver companies offer blocks specifically designed for building fire pits, there’s always the option to use old-fashioned natural boulders.

Depending on how far away this type of patio is set away from the house, a paver walkway may be costly or be unnecessary. You may also want to consider the cost of a concrete walkway, whether a standard broom finish, exposed aggregate, or even stamped concrete, to complement the pavers.

Inside Corner Patio with Fire Pit

In most cases, you have to work with the space available to you. Inside corners like in this photo are notoriously difficult to design for both function and aesthetics. Placing the patio in the corner makes good use of this space, and pushing the fire pit out away from the house enough creates a visually pleasing layout with usable space and the added feature of a fire pit. The patio also connects the patio door to the stairwell, serving as a functional walkway.

Lower-Tier Patio with Stairs and Retaining Wall

Sometimes the grade of your yard can pose a special challenge when it comes to creating a patio area that doesn't require an astronomical budget to realize. Without enough room for comfort up closer to the house, these homeowners opted to install steps down to a paver patio with a cleverly-designed retaining wall that holds back soil and provides seating. Installing a concrete slab and steps is another option in this situation.

Patio with Pergola

Reminiscent of an Italian villa, a patio with a pergola adds aesthetic dimension to your space while also helping define it—and giving a hint of shade. A slate or flagstone pattern and a pergola complement each other to create an old world feeling perfect for relaxing or entertaining. 

Sunken Patio

Excavated into the ground and surrounded by retaining walls and steps to exit to the surround yard, a sunken patio isn’t a layout many people consider, but it’s a great option for a yard that slopes upward rather than downhill from the patio door. Of course, a sunken patio is a natural pooling place for rain and melting snow, so you’ll need to be sure a good drainage system is installed.

Patio with Hot Tub

Making space on your patio for a hot tub is a great addition for both personal enjoyment and entertaining friends and family. Make sure the base is a bit thicker under the hot tub to support the constant added weight and choose your hot tub pad carefully, as the hot tub needs to remain level.

Garden Patio

If you have a green thumb, what could be better than sitting surrounded by your beautiful garden? Designing your patio into your backyard garden area can be a great way to make the most of a smaller space. A small seating area nestled neatly into the surrounding greenery is perfect for personal time and makes for an intimate setting for entertaining a few friends.

Poolside Paver Patio

A paver pool deck doubling as a patio creates the perfect setting for an at-home getaway and space for entertaining. Pavers can be well-suited to pool decks, especially when repairs need to be made to pool lines—pavers can be lifted out to access lines and then be replaced once the repairs are made, leaving no signs that anything was moved. The natural texture of pavers also makes a great non-slip surface around the pool.

Paver Pattern Ideas

Maybe you’ve already got your layout planned or you’re planning to install pavers over an existing concrete patio that’s already there. Either way, the pattern is an important aspect of your patio design. While it can seem daunting, pavers come in several patterns and offer a huge variety of choices.If you’re having trouble deciding on a paver pattern, you can also look into stamped concrete as a potential alternative. In any case, here are some of the most common and most popular paver patio patterns.

Smaller Patterned Slate Hideaway Patio

Slate patterns typically come in a couple of variations with differing stone sizes. The pattern of this patio blends different sizes of squares and rectangles. A pattern with smaller pieces can make a smaller space look larger, but in a much larger space, the pattern can look too busy.

Large Natural Slate Pattern

Compared to the previous patio slate pattern, the slate pattern on the patio in this photo uses larger slate squares and rectangles in a pattern that is, at times, a grid that’s frequently broken up by using two rectangular slate pieces in place of a square. The ultimate pattern with pavers this size can be changed according to your preference.

Slate Pattern with Contrasting Borders

A relatively simple way to offset a slate pattern (or any pattern, for that matter) is to use a border composed of a contrasting stone shape as well as color to enframe the interior pattern and the space itself. In this project, a cobblestone paver in charcoal gets the job done.

Mixed Random Paver Pattern

This patio uses a random mix of squares and rectangles and a blend of colors to achieve a more textured visual in a space that’s rather confined in terms of layout. If you find that your patio area is rather limited in its potential footprint, adding texture in these ways can help add visual appeal and interest.

Herringbone Brick

Herringbone brick pattern adds class and visual interest to any patio. Although the pattern can be used in a space of any size, it’s best suited for small- to medium-sized patios or walkways. Larger areas that are not broken up by borders or other features can begin to look busy, and the pattern gets lost.

Large Random Flagstone

As the name suggests, a large random flagstone pattern uses larger pieces of flagstone fitted randomly together. The pattern recalls rustic ancient and medieval structures built from locally sourced stone hand-hewn to suit the project at hand. The joints between the stones tend to be more uneven, lending to the natural look of the material. Many people like to grow moss in the joints to give the patio an aged appearance.

Flagstone

Related to large random flagstone pattern, of course, this pattern uses smaller stones, and the joints are fitted together more evenly. This rendition of the pattern still gives an old-world natural look but with a little more control over the overall appearance. Depending on the stone available near you, color variations may be available, or the color may be rather uniform. The general color schemes fall in gray and earth tones.

Circle Pattern

Many paver companies produce pavers or kits designed especially for creating circles. The diameter of the circles available varies by company, but the pattern can be used to surround a fire pit, to place amidst a larger area to break up the pattern, or to simply build a large circular paver patio. Contrasting borders can be added for greater differentiation and definition.

Running Bond Brick

Running bond is the pattern you’ve probably seen most often on the brick veneer on houses and buildings. Typically, running bond patterns are usually half-bond, where each course of brick is offset about halfway from the previous course. Although less frequently, running bond patterns are offset by ¼ and ⅓ as well but can be offset at any interval. Similar to herringbone pattern, running bond is best for small to medium-sized areas and walkways unless the pattern is broken up with creative use of borders.

Mixed Patterns

In a very large area that will incorporate a variety of spaces and uses, you can mix patterns and colors to create defined areas. For example, on a large patio or driveway, a contrasting paver pattern and color can be used to indicate a walkway. A border can be helpful in the transition from one paver color and pattern to a different one. This creates visual cues and adds aesthetic interest to the space.

Cobblestone

Cobblestone is a combination of a style of paver that’s usually laid a running bond pattern. This is especially attractive for driveways that go for an old-world look. As with other patterns, you can accent and create visual interest with borders of different colors.

Paver Step Ideas

The cost of raising a patio up to your patio door can be cost-prohibitive and create potential structural issues down the road if soil and materials settle and move in unexpected ways. Although building a large set of paver steps can become costly upfront, it may be your best bet. You’ll need to decide how you want the steps laid out and designed, but seeing examples of steps built in similar scenarios as yours can help you figure out what you want and what you don’t want.

Tiered Paver Steps

This set of paver steps is tiered so that you can walk up from different angles. Steps like this can cost more because they’re more labor-intensive than simpler steps, but you essentially double the functionality by adding another direction of approach. 

Straight Paver Steps

Depending on the cost difference between a tiered approach and building steps straight out from the house, the straightforward design of the steps in this photo may serve your purposes.

Landing or Platform Step

Sometimes, a space doesn’t allow for a set of steps that would be comfortable for anyone to use. Creating a larger landing or platform is one way to solve this problem. Additional steps can even be added to the platform to make a 90-degree turn more comfortable and visually pleasing.

Upper Landing with Standard Step

Another option for step layout is to create a larger landing outside the patio door. This makes for safer exits from the house, especially while carrying drinks or food out to the grill. Trying to stand on a narrow top step can be awkward and uncomfortable, so the larger landing is an excellent way to provide some solid footing. Another intermediate step can be built between the patio and the upper landing if needed.

Rounded Steps

Scalloped, round steps can add a decorative touch to your patio and provide some functionality. Rounded steps in many situations allow people to approach the steps from more directions than a set of straight steps that extend straight out, limiting the possible directions of approach. Note that this style typically requires more labor because of the cutting involved, so they also usually cost more than straight, rectangular steps.

Limestone Block Steps

Rather than using the same type of pavers to build your steps, another option is to use large blocks of limestone to create your steps. Although you may pay more for the limestone block than the pavers, installation is simplified to preparing the stone base and setting the stone in place rather than fitting individual pavers together. The visual differentiation can also serve aesthetic design purposes.

Considerations When Choosing Paver Step Designs

Aside from the price for different step configurations, you’ll want to consider the depth of each step tread. Meaning: Does your foot fit comfortably on each step, or does it feel too shallow, like your foot doesn’t quite fit? Typical step treads range from 12” to 16”, but there’s no limit other than trying to avoid having to take a stutter step because the tread is too deep. That can make using the stairs uncomfortable and even dangerous if it causes people to lose balance.

As another consideration, figure out how much of your patio the steps will take up. Large sets of steps can eat up a lot of valuable patio space, especially if the patio will be on the smaller side. 

Ultimately, you’ll want to discuss these options and the pros and cons of each with your paver patio installation contractor. They’ve seen a lot of designs and have enough experience to know what’s likely to work.