Ugly square paving slabs.

[Methenyouplus4]

We'd planned to replace all the ones round our house for a lovely natural stone but sadly (long dull story) can't afford it financially for a few years.

Any ideas how we can make it more attractive? It will be used as a seating area and have heard you can paint them but i'd like something natural looking.

I would cover it with pots. It's astounding how much you can draw the eye away from an ugly surface by covering it with green!

No help here but I'm in the same position love my new home but it's got a long narrow terrace of ugly paving stones with a naice 70's wall power cleaning last year helped slightly

Could you remove one or two slabs and plant with low creeping plants, thyme is pretty tough and smells lovely. Then could still use as a seating area but the expanse of grey, square slabs is broken up. Second the idea of lots of pots too.

Hi methenyouplus4 and lighteningirl, shovetheholly had a great idea with covering the area with pots. When you've put the furniture in for the seating area you might be surprised at how much the look of the area changes.

I'd have a look at Pinterest for ideas, they always have loads of crafty money saving tips for decor how tos, there is also a blog here that might have a couple of things you'd not considered www.bradfords.co.uk/expert-advice/blog/gardening-blog/decorating-your-patio

Hope this helps :)

Apart from jet cleaning the paving slabs I did think at one point one could probably stencil a design in exterior floor paint to make the slabs less grey and concrete looking. For example a leaf stencil or a lotus stencil on every other slab.

uk.pinterest.com/explore/painted-concrete-patios/

my favourite is this because it allows for an uneven colour underneath
uk.pinterest.com/pin/419327415284047106/

Assuming the area is festively small, I'd lift them and put down weedproof membrane and gravel. The slabs are probably laid on sand , which makes a good base. You might need to add a bit more

Gravel is relatively cheap - we paid £70 a ton for posh gold Quartz delivered .

lol I mean " relatively " not " festively "

#autocorrectfail

Thank you all for your idea, off to check out links.

Kr1- what sort of area did a ton cover? I had thought about that as love the look ut worried the kids would kick/throw it all around garden (they're not poorly behaved, just 3 under 3 so can't keep an eye on them all at once)!

Thank you all for ideas.

You do need some sort of edging to stop it migrating onto the grass . And if your kids are really tiny, you might worry about them putting it in their mouths . As you know there's no end to the stupid things children can think of to do .

I'm not sure about the area , as obviously it depends on how thick you want it . We have a plastic grid system under ours, on top of the sand and the membrane , as its on our driveway . I'll check it later , but as a very rough guess I reckon 4m2 per ton

I have to say I'm well impressed at your organisational abilities if you can find time to garden with 3 under 3

I'd be a bit cautious about gravel if there are cats around. We did something like this once and discovered we'd effectively created a giant litter tray for every cat in the neighbourhood.

I definitely don't want to create a large litter tray!

Why waste money on gravel when you hope to get new slabs one day? If some of the old ones are broken and make the surface uneven replace with a coloured clippings, but otherwise invest in some really lovely pots. The bigger the better, and plant up some with a mix of evergreen e.g. box, Christmas roses for all year round structure, and then enjoy filling others with seasonal stuff, herbs whatever. Load of ideas on the internet.

Good point about putting it in their mouth (or ear, or whatever other orifice they fancy)- will rethink that plan! I'm thinking hiding them with pots etc may be the way to go. I did like the painted effect on pintrest but just don't think I could be bothered to do it.

Have to say I'm not super organised, gardening is a lovely escape to maintain one's sanity! We have loads of work to do on the lovely large garden that came with the house when we bought it 2 years ago bit priority this year is making it safe for all little ones- now they're all mobile we had to get rid of pond/ concrete steps etc as just not safe when you can't be in three places at once.

Gravel gets in the house and can be difficult for buggies and the like but otherwise is very nice

I am so sad about you gravel haterz [ sad] [ wink]

I agree about the pond - we got rid of the small one that was here when we bought the house and just built a large one last year as our youngest was 8 .

( before anyone asks, the neighbours have no small children. There are none living within about half a mile )

Ah now they are working

i see posts sometimes on my local facebook selling page for free paving slabs. have you checked your local pages?

we just bought natural sandstone for our garden and got a good deal with a local builders merchants. are you sure the slabs are out of reach financially?

i too had 3 under three (now 1, 2 and almost 4). we took got rid of a pond. dont do gravel! we have a terrible cheap patio which will be replaced in a few weeks time. it has taken us 3 years to get here! we cheered up our patio with pots, we replaced the broken slabs, and we moved some of the better slabs from under the table and chairs and put them in more prominent positions.

good luck. you'll get there!

I also have ugly concrete slabs at the back of my house (my patio area). Has anyone tried a plastic outdoor rug to cover it up? You can get one off ebay and it seems like a nice option to have under the garden table and chairs. Anyone?