When it comes to breathing a new lease of life into your property, renovating your garden is a great way to do so in spades.

Back garden renovation, in particular, can really transform a property and, more specifically, your enjoyment of it, providing endless hours of outdoor relaxation and open-air fun.

However, with limitless potential for renovation ideas, settling on a way to do so can be a headache in itself.

Luckily, this blog is here to help get you on track to the garden of your dreams.

Garden Renovation Checklist

Like any big job, garden renovation isn’t something you can jump into without any forethought or planning. If you want it done right, you’re going to have to be organised.

Follow these steps to ensure your back garden renovation goes smoothly:

Draft a Design

Your first port of call should always be to draft up a rough design of how you want your garden to look. Just like any building project, flying by the seat of your pants without a definitive direction is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

Even if your design skills leave a lot to be desired, a rough sketch of what you want where can really help you to visualise the finished product and go a long way in helping you achieve the end result.

Go Pro or DIY?

Once you’ve got an idea of how you want your garden to look and which creative direction you want to go, you should now have a good idea of what needs to be done in order to achieve your desired result.

From here, you should also have a general indication of what you are capable of achieving yourself and what you will need professional help with. The extent of outside influence can often depend on budget but it’s important not to overstep your boundaries.

While it is usually cheaper and more cost-effective to go the DIY route, a botched job done poorly can result in a sub-par finish and lead to further costs down the line. If you don’t think you’re capable of achieving the desired result on a specific task, don’t be afraid to call in an expert.

Shop Around

Speaking of budget, another important thing to keep in mind when you’re planning your garden renovation is that price can and will vary from one supplier to the next.

This can be particularly notable when it comes to accessories and features like garden furniture, plants and pots. Don’t settle on the first result and take time to shop around.

That being said, shopping around for the best item at the best price can also be quite a juggling act at times, as there’s a fine line between economical and cheap.

If budget is a concern, aim for a middle of the road item for the best of both worlds. The product with the lowest value may have earned that price tag for a reason.

Recycle and Upcycle

One of the best trump cards for keeping within your budget when it comes to garden renovation is to recycle and upcycle old/existing items.

Old indoor furniture with a lick of paint can get a second wind with a renewed sense of purpose outdoors, so think twice before you throw out those tired kitchen chairs.

Similarly, charity shops can be a treasure trove of potential when it comes to upcycling, while even industrial items like breeze blocks and disused timber can make for a surprisingly attractive shabby chic bench.

Deck or Paving

Proper planning and budgeting can give you the chance to visualise the desired look and feel you want for your garden. It can also allow you to consider possibilities that can truly transform your outside space.

If you don’t already have it, an instant way to revamp your outdoor property is to invest in decking or paving. Meanwhile, if you do have a patio or a deck area, trading one for the other can also reinvent your garden instantly.

Zoning is also an increasingly popular design trend, combining lawn, patio and deck areas in one single garden space. Don’t be afraid to play around with concepts during the design stage. After all, it’s your space – let your imagination take you where you want to go.

Space Jam

If you have a modestly sized outdoor area and space is a concern, you don’t have to lose out. In fact, small garden renovation can be just as rewarding and equally as stunning if you know the tricks of the trade.

From building up vertically using shelves and wall decorations to creating the illusion of space using light colours and clever furnishing, there are a whole host of tricks, shortcuts and hacks that can allow you to get the most out of the space you have.

Click HERE to find out more about space-saving tips for a small garden renovation.

For more information on back garden renovation and how to revamp your outdoor space, why not drop us a line today? Call now on 0800 028 8756 or click the button below to get in touch online.

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When it comes to outdoor design, having a small garden can be frustratingly restrictive at times. With a limited amount of room to work with, every inch of floor-space can be vital.

However, just because you may have a modestly-sized outdoor space doesn’t mean you have to lose out on all the greeny garden gratification of a larger garden.

With a bit of creativity, an open mind and a little elbow grease for good measure, you can turn your pint-sized plot into a veritable Tardis of alfresco awesomeness.

Small Garden Ideas

There’s a fine line between busy and messy, and even the addition of a single plant pot can take up a surprising amount of room. As such, every small garden design addition needs to carefully thought out.

To help you make the right choices when it comes to your outdoor space, here are five great garden hacks that never fail to expand your exterior.

Shelf-Respect

Building up is a recurring trend when it comes to making the most of a small garden. Adding shelves to your garden courtyard can be a great way to save space. Providing multiple levels of decorative space at your disposal, shelves make for the perfect place to house potted plants and garden ornaments,

Climbing the Walls

Much like shelving, another great way to incorporate flowers and plant life without monopolising floor space is to utilise the fences and walls around the garden. Incorporating trellis fencing to hang plants from the side and rear walls can create a beautiful space-saving perimeter for a truly stunning visual.

Pane Relief

A fantastic alternative to a bulkier flower bed that will eat up a chunk of floor space, window boxes are a great way to provide colour and vibrancy for your garden using a minimal amount garden real estate.

Don’t Cut Corners

Adding seating to your outside space can and usually will take up a lot of room, particularly if you incorporate a table into the mix as well. Opt for a weatherproof corner sofa to ensure you utilise every inch of space to its fullest potential. Meanwhile, this will also cover the walls giving the illusion of additional space.

Lighten Up

Finally, be sure to incorporate light/bright colours into your small garden design. Whether you opt for creamy-coloured flooring tiles, white-painted fencing or even lightly-coloured garden furniture, a simple bright colour-scheme can have an instant impact on space. 

For additional small garden ideas or more information on how to make the most of your small garden design, why not drop us a line? Call now on 0800 028 8756 or click the button below to get in touch online.

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When it comes to adding an element of contemporary garden design to your outdoor space, knowing where to start can be half the battle.

With so many options at the click of a mouse, the myriad of available avenues is virtually endless, leaving you spoilt for choice and none the wiser on where to begin.

To save you from an overwhelming state of mental design flux, we’ve laid out a few simple options to help you bring your contemporary garden design to life on your property.

Zone Out

A growing trend in the gardening community and exterior design is the art of zoning. This essentially splits your outdoor space into distinct areas with a designated theme, look or purpose for each “zone”.

Zoning can help open up your garden give it a more voluminous feel, while it can also increase your garden’s overall appeal by giving your outdoor space with a multi-dimensional sense of purpose.

Creating designated areas for dining, relaxing and play can instantly make your outdoor space an outdoor oasis for people of all ages, making your garden the place to be for a variety of occasions.

Hit the Deck

The multi-functional appeal of decking makes it the perfect addition to any modern garden design. Whether you’re looking to relax and soak up the sun or wine and dine with friends, a decking area can oblige with ease.

Providing the perfect surface to host a variety of outdoor activities, decking can also be a great way to break up your garden and separate it from your lawn and plants.

What’s more, modern composite decking provides both style and substance with its superior durability and range of board designs, making it the perfect material for a long-term garden fixture that looks good and lasts.

Pave the Way

Providing design diversity in droves and personality in abundance, paving for your garden can inject an immediate dose of personality into your property, bringing your outdoor space to life from the moment they arrive.

Available in a huge variety of design options, paving is perhaps the easiest way to make a wholesale change to your garden’s aesthetic presentation. Better still, porcelain paving is specifically designed for low-maintenance longevity and long-term lifespan, providing you with a durable design that retains its looks for the long-haul.

Additionally, lighter colours, like creams and whites, can help create a sense of space, giving the illusion that your garden is bigger than it actually is. If space is at a premium, a brighter tile choice could result in a visually expansive garden.

Lounge Around

Perhaps the ultimate in outdoor enjoyment and relaxation, turning your garden into a glorified lounge can be a perfect way to add a touch of contemporary design to your outdoor space.

While a lounge-like ambience can be achieved through many of the above methods – established to great effect when combining several of these options – the way you accessorise can make all the difference.

Modern design trends have seen interior design staples make their way out into the open air, from rattan style corner sofas to upcycled indoor furniture reborn for the outdoors.

Meanwhile, fire pits and fire bowls can make a great centrepiece for a social area that also provides a hypnotic, mesmerising quality you can just as easily get lost in.

However, no outdoor lounge would be complete without comfy weatherproof seating, so keep that high on the list. Complete the care-free atmosphere by adding an attractive water feature for an all-natural soundtrack.

For more inspiration and information on contemporary garden design, give us a call on 0800 028 8756 or get in touch online using the button below.

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Like any kind of home furnishing, garden styles have their own revolving door of fashion trends, ranging from crazy paving and water features to parasols and trampolines.

2019 is no different, with a number of exterior design choices expected to crop up with increasing regularity over the next year and beyond.

To keep you in the loop and ahead of the curve, we’ve laid out a few of the most popular garden trends we expect to see over the coming years and how you can implement them in your home.

Inside Out

Bringing your interior design to your outside space is a growing trend in outdoor living and it’s easy to see why. Creating a stylish external space with the aesthetic allure of your interior is a fantastic way to bring your garden to life and make it the place to be for social gatherings and solo relaxation.

While gardening culture may be more associated with older generations, this new trend of interior designs outdoors is something that is particularly popular amongst younger generations. This could be due, in part, to the fast-paced lifestyles of the modern day.

However, that’s not to say it’s a trend that is exclusive to Millennials and Generation Z. Extending your indoor space into your garden is a design choice that can be enjoyed by all ages. This can be done using our indoor/outdoor tiling range, creating a seamless transition that effortlessly flows from your interior to the outside.

Eco-Friendly

Climate change, deforestation and a general sense of increased awareness has seen the world take a far more responsible approach to daily life in recent years, from weekly recycling and energy saving lightbulbs to wind farms and electric cars.

The garden is no different and eco-friendly garden design has become increasingly popular. This is something we take particularly seriously at AlfrescoPlus, which is reflected in our products and our production methods.

All of our porcelain tiles and composite decking is designed to meet and exceed the environmental standards of the European Ecolab, while our sourcing methods are meticulously refined to ensure our carbon footprint is kept to a minimum. If you’re looking for an eco-friendly garden, you can rest easy if you opt for AlfrescoPlus.

For more information on our eco-friendly products, check out our Eco-Friendly Garden Choices blog for further details.

Zoning Out

Building a garden that suits you and your family can be a difficult juggling, particularly when your home has numerous ages and personalities all under one roof. As such, garden zoning has become increasingly popular and looks to continue this trend through 2019 and beyond.

The best way to describe this is to picture a long rectangular garden. Imagine a patio area directly outside the back door, leading into a green patch of lawn, before ending with a raised area of decking. Each zone can be used for a completely different purpose, with the patio for relaxing, the garden for play and the decking for socialising and barbeques.

Obviously, that is purely an example; the true extent of garden zoning is limited only to your imagination. If you want to throw a path, a pond or even a hot tub into the mix, you won’t hear any objections from us!

By breaking up your garden into sections, you not only effectively create designated areas for different activities, you also make your garden seem bigger as a result.

Show Time

Despite the general consensus that British weather is dull, depressing and decidedly damp year-round, that doesn’t stop us from venturing outdoors in the pursuit of a good time. In fact, outdoor entertaining has become its own garden trend, with sales of garden furniture reportedly on a steady incline.

British weather can be surprisingly hot at times, making the garden the perfect venue to entertain guests or entertain yourself. Whether it’s dining under the sun or socialising under the stars, holding court in your garden is a great way to make the most of your outdoor space and make the most of the good weather at the same time.

Turn your garden into the place to be when the weather allows by creating a stylish paved patio, complete with comfy furniture like garden sofa, or an inviting deck area that’s perfect for those barbeques that last long after sundown.

There you have it, a peak behind the turf at some of the main garden trends you can expect to see this year and beyond. Keep your garden in vogue with AlfrescoPlus!

For more information on our outdoor living products, call now on 0800 028 8756 or drop us a line using the button below.

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For those not in know, it’s easy to think that gardening is pretty eco-friendly by its very definition. After all, cultivation of plants, veg and flowers is surely as green as it gets, right?

However, there are a number of ways that gardening in its many forms can adversely affect the environment.

Chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers are prime examples of this, while something as simple as lopping down a sun-blocking tree can be exponentially harmful to your garden’s ecosystem.

Avoid any planetary blunders and keep your garden green in every way by following these top tips to an eco-friendly garden.

Eco-friendly garden ideas

Creating an eco-friendly garden doesn’t mean you have to leave your modern life behind, dedicate your new life to plants and erect a wind farm in your back yard (although each to their own).

Thankfully, it’s actually a lot easier and less life-altering than that. To get you started on your journey to eco-enlightenment, here are two easy ways to keep your garden as green as can be.

Promote wildlife

Encourage wildlife in your garden by making it attractive for the various species native to your area. Why not add a bird feeder to your space to instantly bring a healthy dose of nature to your garden?

Meanwhile, bees are famed for their pollination powers, making their presence all the more important. Adding brightly coloured plants like lavender, honeysuckle and foxgloves can be a great way to attract these pollinatory powerhouses.

If you’re really looking to go all-in, why not invest in a bee hotel or, better yet, make your own? Simple yet effective, these specially made “Bee&Bees” are perfect for ensuring good beehive-iour in your garden.

…Moving on!

Solar-power

Making the use of your natural surroundings can be surprisingly easy when it comes to making your garden eco-friendly, particularly when it comes to using solar-power.

Harnessing renewable sun-power in your garden can be as simple as switching your electric outdoor lights for solar-panel lights. These are readily available on at most garden centres, hardware stores and even large supermarkets.

Meanwhile, solar panels can also be used to power other garden features, from pond pumps to water fountains. What’s more, the addition of water features also lends itself well to the previous point, aiding wildlife promotion in your garden.

How to make eco-friendly garden choices

If you do have your heart set on decking or a patio for your garden, don’t despair. While tearing up a section of your garden in favour of wood or stone may not seem like the most eco-friendly option, it doesn’t make you a bad person!

AlfrescoPlus is a safe option, with the environment high on the company priorities. To minimise our carbon footprint, both our porcelain pavers and our composite decking options are extremely durable and hard-wearing.

Built to last, each tile and board boasts superior fade, stain and scratch resistance, minimising the effects on the environment by negating the need for a replacement.

But we don’t just stop there. We are on a mission to make gardens truly green in every way, which why we’ve made our paving and decking as eco-friendly as possible.

Eco-friendly porcelain

All of our porcelain tiles and pavers are rigorously tested to ensure they go above and beyond environmental standards, adhering to the strict criteria of the European Ecolabel. This ensures that all of our products and their associated processes are specifically designed to have as little impact on the environment as possible.

From the sourcing of raw materials nearby to reduce transportation to reusing water and saving energy during the manufacturing process itself, every effort is taken to ensure that our carbon footprint barely leaves a track.

BROWSE PAVING

Eco-friendly paving tips

Rain gardens allow rainwater to run off hard surfaces following a downpour, channelling this water into a designated patch of plants. By creating shallow grooves into paving slabs you can guide water run-off into your drainage channel or even directly into the rain garden itself.

Eco-friendly decking

Like our porcelain products, our decking options abide by a similar code of ethics as well. Our decking is made from a unique blend of recycled hardwood and pure polymer resins, 73% of our which is recycled materials (with an aim of reaching 95% recycled material in the near future).

No trees at all are cut down to make our products and all our composite wood products are made with reclaimed wood. Meanwhile, none of our decking requires painting, sealing or staining – minimising the use of potentially harmful materials.

What’s more, our product packaging is made with 43% recycled material and are 100% recyclable. Even our deck lights use energy efficient bulbs!

BROWSE DECKING

Eco-friendly decking tips

Reusing waste materials is a great way to preserve the environment and can even be used to directly influence the environment in your garden. Leftover decking can easily be made into any number of environmentally-friendly garden additions: from birdhouses to flower box planters.

For more tips on our eco-friendly options, why not drop us a line on 0800 028 8756 today? Alternatively, get in touch online using the button below and make your garden a little greener today!

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