Outdoor Entertaining Patios in Perth

A standard eight-seat outdoor table is roughly 2.2 by 1.0 metres. Pull the chairs out and you need about 800 mm clear on every side, which puts the working footprint near 3.8 by 2.6 metres.

Then add circulation. A walking path behind the seated chairs needs another 600 to 700 mm, and that is before anyone is carrying a plate.

So a table for eight, comfortably, wants around 4.5 by 3.5 metres of covered area on its own. A lounge setting or a bar area needs its footprint on top of that.

This arithmetic is why patios get quoted at six or seven metres deep. It is also why a three metre deep patio disappoints almost everyone who builds one.

A big patio with everything pushed to the edges feels like a corridor. Zoning fixes it: a dining zone, a lounge zone, and a cooking zone that does not sit in the walkway.

The roof structure can mark those zones without walls. A post position, a change in ceiling treatment, or a lighting circuit boundary all do the job quietly.

Where the space is long and narrow, splitting it across the depth works better than lining everything up along the house. It also keeps the barbecue smoke away from the seating.

The Fremantle Doctor is why Perth evenings are bearable in February and why they are unusable in June. It arrives from the south-west across most of the metro area, generally from early afternoon.

For an entertaining space, that means one side almost always needs the option of closing. Cafe blinds, louvres or a solid screen on the south-west face extend the usable season by months.

Wind also affects what you can put under the roof. Umbrellas, loose cushions and lightweight furniture all need somewhere to go, and the design can include storage for them.

Any screening carries wind load into the structure, so it gets engineered in rather than added to a finished patio and hoped for.

Lighting decides whether a patio gets used after dark. One harsh bulkhead on the house wall does not.

The usual specification is layered. Ambient downlights or a strip wash for the whole space, a brighter circuit over the cooking zone, and something low and warm for late in the evening.

Power needs more outlets than people plan for. A bar fridge, a warming drawer, speakers, a fan, string lights and a phone charger add up quickly, and outlets are cheap while the frame is open.

All electrical work is done by a licensed electrician. Getting the conduit into the posts before they are set is our job.

Perth blocks are close together and outdoor entertaining carries. Positioning the seating zone away from a shared boundary is a small design decision that avoids a long-running problem.

A hard flat ceiling does reflect sound downward and outward. A screen along the boundary side helps, as does putting the noisy end of the patio against the house rather than the fence.

Barbecue placement is the other courtesy. Smoke drifts on the afternoon breeze, so a cooking zone on the south-western corner sends it straight at the neighbour.

Most people extend an entertaining space eventually, and the cheap time to allow for it is now. An extra bay of footings, or conduit stubbed to where a future kitchen might go, costs very little at the frame stage.

Structure is the harder thing to add later. A beam sized only for its current span cannot simply be extended, whereas a design that anticipates a future bay can.

We ask what you might want in five years. Sometimes the answer is nothing, and that is a useful answer too.