Concrete Patio Ideas... Form Family Friendly Patios

If you have children, you probably find that you spend quite a lot of time outdoors. After all, kids today still enjoy the same simple activities you enjoyed as a child, such as riding bicycles, playing in the wading pool, and diving into piles of leaves. However, if your backyard is a muddy mess, keeping an eye on the children as they play is not very enjoyable. With one of these great concrete patio ideas, you can turn that blah seating spot into a place to relax and entertain your family and friends.

Many people opt for one of the easiest and least expensive concrete patio ideas, a simple gray concrete slab. While there is certainly nothing wrong with this type of patio, you may want to use aggregate concrete, which has a pebbled surface, instead of the traditional smooth surface to help make the concrete less slippery when it is wet.

If you have written off concrete patios because they look too cold and unwelcoming, you may want to give them a second look. Concrete dyes are readily available and you can use them to give the concrete a more natural look. You can also dye half of your concrete one color and half the other color and pour it in alternating squares to create a fun checkerboard patio design.

To make a concrete patio that looks like it is made from individual bricks, flagstones, or cobblestones, take a look at one of the most innovative new concrete patio ideas, concrete forms. These forms make it easy to create sections of concrete that look like other materials.

Simply mix your concrete as you normally would and add concrete dye to give it a realistic color. Then, position your form in the center of your patio area and fill it with the concrete mixture. Smooth the concrete’s surface with your trowel and let the form sit until the concrete is firm enough to hold its shape, usually just two or three minutes.

Then, lift the form away, position it next to the concrete you just poured, and repeat the process. Soon, you will have a patio that looks like it was created with expensive brick or stone materials at half the price.

If you already have a gray slab concrete patio, you can still dress it up a bit. There are quite a few concrete stains available. You can use concrete stain to give your patio a warmer appearance or you can actually transform the patio into a faux tile or faux slate patio by using several different shades of stain to recreate the veining and shade variations in natural stone.

Once you use one of these concrete patio ideas to create a place for your family to relax, you can finally enjoy being outside with the kids. Of course, if you give your children a bucket of chalk, they will be able to enjoy that new patio, too. After all, the best thing about a concrete patio is that it can become a reusable canvas for your children’s artwork.