A concrete or hardscape material will be almost maintenance free and your best investment for return. Wood will require much more care and maintenance. With your beautiful home being new and brick I would select a hardscape material of your choice for your budget. Also think about your outdoor use and needs for the future! Best wishes!

I actually like raised decks insted of patios and with a brick house I would use a nice IPE decking to give some releif from all the hard stone like material. I must say a single door off the side of a kitchen table is not what I would envision as an inviting entry to a deck but without knowing waht the other spaces around the kitchen are it is hard to comment.

Which way is north? Do you have a plan that shows where all the surrounding houses are?

how raised will the patio be compared to your access door? i don't like dealing with a door and more than one step to go outside. for that reason a deck usually works better. i also find my deck dries faster from morning dew.

Heather, being this new construction you want to wait at least a year before you install a patio or anything else. The entire area around the house was excavated and you want to wait until the soil which was disturbed or excavated settles.

That said in your case since you have brick all around and if you have winter season you are probably better off with a raised patio if the house has a basement.

Good luck in your new home.

Agree with ninigret. A deck can basically be at the floor level while a patio will be at the ground level.

I agree with London Staging and Design. A concrete or hardscape material will be almost maintenance free and can have multiple tiers to address variances in grade which also provide character to your outdoor living design.

I hope some of these ideas help. Good Luck with your design.

With a raised patio you will have a porch with a landing min 3' out and steps will go right onto a patio.

The problem with the deck, is that you cannot attach a ledger to the brick, in order to do a ledger you have to drill through the brick so the ledger can be attached to the rim-board.

If you doing a free standing deck, any installed footing within 5' of the house must be installed on undisturbed soil, which means it had to go down to the footing level of the house, so if there is a basement that a lot of digging if the house on a slab it's not so bad if you only have to go the required "bellow the frost level" if there is a winter season in that region.

In most cases the raised patio is away to go, and as I said earlier in a previous post you have to give minimum 1 year to settle, some companies I know they will not install patios or hard-scapes near a new built house before the house is 2 years old.

It is a matter of taste and the topography. Most of my clients prefer patios, when the topography allows.

Paver won't crack like concrete and won't rot like wood. Offers you the ability to forma retaining wall if necessary.

Wouldn't you prefer a ground-level patio where you can develop a true indoor-outdoor activity area(s)?

@GN Builders - total tangent, but here they won't let us "sandwich" veneer brick between the ledger and the house's rim joist. I'm jealous that you still can, because we either need to remove the brick and attach wood to wood, or just go freestanding. Both of which suck in comparison.

As far as settling of the foundation backfill, we tell our clients 5-7 years minimum. I'm sure a lot depends on local soils, but here I've seen everything go great till year 3 or 4.

http://s1277.photobucket.com/user/treeshouse/library/Patio%20and%20Back%20yard?sort=2&page=1

My preference is a patio. Ours is pavers and a small egress deck transcends from the house.

@Revolutionary Gardens, I couldn't agree with you more, same here, it is doable but nobody does the ledgers attached to brick when dealing with brick veneer. Because you need engineering details, to make the attachment.

In my over 30 years in business I did 1 job and they had an Engineer design a SS H- bracket, we had cut pockets to insert them and bolt it to the ledger, we had to add additional blocking on the inside side of the basement, etc it was to much work and it doesn't worth the money you spend to do all that.

On the general note in the last 30+ years I been in business, I built one house with full brick all around, and I know a few masons who built their own home with full brick, other then that you don't see full bricked houses anymore so you don't have to deal with this sort of ledger attachments 85% of the people go for patios now, most places you don't need a permit, unless stairs and railings involved, and they don't hit you up for taxes, and the minute you attach something to the house your taxes go up.