Some projects are about fixing what’s broken. This one was about giving someone room to breathe. She kept telling us the same thing: she just wanted more space out back — somewhere to put a table, pull up chairs, and actually enjoy the yard she’d fallen in love with.
When we first walked the property, the story was easy to read. A beautiful home, a big open backyard with pines and green space behind it — and a back porch so small it could hold a couple of chairs and not much else. Every time she wanted to have people over, or just sit outside with her coffee, that little covered slab reminded her how much she was missing. She didn’t need a whole addition. She needed ground to stand on.
Measure twice, pour once
Concrete is unforgiving — once it’s down, it’s down. So before anyone touched a bag of mix, we spent time laying the whole thing out on the ground: squaring it to the house, checking the fall so water runs away from the foundation instead of toward it, and marking a size that felt generous without swallowing the yard. We wanted the patio to feel like it had always been part of the house.
Laying it out first — squaring to the house and setting the slope before a single form goes down.
Built to hold, not just to look good
Here’s where a lot of cheap concrete work goes wrong. In the Lowcountry, the ground moves — our sandy, moisture-heavy soil swells and settles with the seasons, and a slab that isn’t built for it will crack and lift within a couple of years. So we framed the patio with solid wood forms and set a full grid of steel wire mesh reinforcement inside before the pour. That mesh is the difference between a patio that holds flat for decades and one that turns into a jigsaw puzzle.
Forms squared and steel mesh in place — the reinforcement that keeps a Lowcountry slab from cracking.
Pour day
Then came the part she’d been waiting for. Our crew moved fast and worked it clean — placing the concrete, screeding it level across the forms, and hand-finishing the surface smooth so it drains right and feels good underfoot. It’s hot, heavy, time-sensitive work; once the mix starts to set, the clock is running. By the end of the day the bare dirt was gone, and in its place was a wide, solid patio wrapping right off her back porch.
Placing and working the concrete — the whole pour and finish happens in a single day.
Hand-finishing the surface smooth so it sheds water and feels good underfoot.
What we built
The details
Project
A large reinforced concrete patio poured off an existing covered back porch, extending the usable outdoor space several times over.
Reinforcement
Full steel wire mesh grid set inside wood forms before the pour — built for Lowcountry soil that moves with the moisture.
Finish
Screeded level and hand-finished smooth, with the slope set so water runs away from the house.
Location
Savannah, GA. Backyard of a single-family home, off the rear porch.
The story her backyard tells now
When it was done, the change wasn’t just the concrete — it was her face. She’d spent so long feeling cramped in her own backyard, and now she was standing on a patio big enough for a table, a grill, chairs, room for family. She was thrilled. Genuinely, visibly happy. That’s the part of this work that never gets old: handing someone the space to actually live in the home they love.
Thinking about a patio or bigger outdoor space?
Whether it’s a fresh concrete patio, a walkway, a driveway, or extending a porch you’ve outgrown, we handle it start to finish — same crew, same standard, from the first measure to the final trowel. Take a look at our concrete work, or if you’d rather go with a build-out, our decks and porches. We’re a Savannah and Lowcountry crew, and we’d be glad to walk your backyard with you.