Fire & Water Backyard

Fire bowls at the pool, a quartzite kitchen, a gas fireplace on the porch and a two-tone Techo-Bloc patio, with one clever detail hidden in it.

This Summerville backyard is one job with several parts: the fire features at the pool, a stone outdoor kitchen, a fireplace on the covered porch, the patio and the steps down to the yard.

The patio and steps are Techo-Bloc pavers laid in a two-color pattern. The pool has an automatic cover, and one section of paving over its housing has to lift out for service, which is why the pattern could not simply run across it. We set a steel plate over the opening, cut the pavers down so they sit level with the rest, glued them to the plate, and left an easy groove to lift the whole panel out. The pattern reads as continuous, and the cover can still be serviced.

At the pool, we built the stone pedestals and set the fire bowls along the low wall, so the water has flames reflecting in it after dark.

Up on the raised patio, the outdoor kitchen wraps the corner in an L, faced in stacked stone with stainless doors and drawers. The counter is quartzite, which takes heat and sun better than most stone. It holds a grill and a flat top side by side, so one person can cook burgers while another does the sides, with a sink and a fridge within reach. It sits a few steps from the porch fireplace, so cooking and sitting by the fire happen in the same space.

The porch fireplace is gas, finished in dark tile with a TV above the firebox, a modern look against the white porch.