5 Design Decisions That Can Save You Thousands Before Construction Starts

There's a very expensive phrase in construction: "Can we add that now?"

Usually, the answer is yes. The problem is that "now" may be after the patio has been poured, the landscaping has gone in, the sod is down, and everyone has packed up and left. Adding something that would have been relatively simple during construction can suddenly mean cutting concrete, digging through finished landscaping, bringing crews back to the property, and then paying to put everything back together again.

This is why some of the smartest ways to save money on a pool or complete backyard project have very little to do with choosing less expensive materials or eliminating features. They come down to making certain decisions in the right order. You don't necessarily have to build everything at once, but you do want to know where you're headed before you build something permanent in the way.

Here are five decisions worth making while they're still lines on a plan instead of concrete in your backyard.

1. Decide What's Coming Later Before You Build What's Coming Now

Maybe this year's budget includes the pool and patio, while the outdoor kitchen comes next year. The pavilion might be three years away. You'd eventually love a fire feature or spa, but you're not ready to commit to either one yet. There's absolutely nothing wrong with building a backyard in phases. In fact, it can be a great way to get exactly what you want without trying to fit an entire wish list into one construction budget.

The mistake is treating each phase as though the next one doesn't exist.

An outdoor kitchen may eventually need electrical service, water and gas. A future pavilion could need power for lighting, fans, televisions or heaters. Landscape lighting needs wiring. A fire feature may require a gas line. Even something as simple as adding outlets on the far side of the patio can become surprisingly complicated once everything between the house and that outlet is finished.

Before phase one begins, sketch out the backyard you'd ultimately love to have—even if half of it isn't happening for years. Your builder can identify places where conduit, sleeves, utility lines or other preparations make sense now. Spending a relatively small amount while the site is already open can prevent you from paying someone to cut through your beautiful new patio later.

2. Figure Out Where the Water Goes Before Adding More Hard Surfaces

A Georgia thunderstorm does not care how much you spent on your new patio.

Water is going to follow the grade of your property, and adding a pool, patio, retaining walls and other hard surfaces changes how much water is absorbed into the ground and where runoff travels. Drainage is one of those parts of backyard design nobody gets excited about until it isn't working. Then it becomes the only thing you care about.

Before construction, look at how the property currently behaves in heavy rain. Where are the low spots? Where do your downspouts discharge? Does water travel toward the house or away from it? Is runoff entering from a neighboring property? Are there areas that stay soggy long after everything else has dried? Those clues matter when you're determining new grades, drains, retaining walls and the elevations of finished surfaces.

Addressing those issues while excavation and grading equipment are already on the property can be relatively straightforward. Discovering them after the patio, sod, irrigation and landscaping have been installed can mean tearing into work you've already paid for and then paying to restore it. Drainage may never be the prettiest line item on a backyard proposal, but getting it right can protect nearly every prettier thing you're building around it.

3. Design the Patio Around Actual Furniture—Not an Arbitrary Number of Feet

This is an easy place to either overspend or regret not spending enough.

A drawing can make a patio look enormous when it's completely empty. Add two loungers, a dining table with the chairs pulled out, a grill, a couple of side tables and six people trying to walk around each other, and suddenly all that open space disappears. On the other hand, simply adding more concrete everywhere "just in case" can leave you paying for a giant expanse of hardscape nobody ever uses.

There's a much better way to figure it out: put the furniture on the plan.

If you already own outdoor furniture, measure it. If you're planning to buy new pieces, look up their dimensions. A chaise lounge can take up significantly more room than it appears to in a catalog photo, and a dining table needs enough clearance for people to pull their chairs out and still allow someone to walk behind them. Outdoor sectionals, grills and fire features all need breathing room, too.

Once those pieces are drawn roughly to scale, you'll start seeing where the patio needs to be generous and where it doesn't. You might discover that you need four extra feet near the dining area but very little additional decking along the opposite side of the pool. Spending money on usable square footage rather than simply more square footage can give you a better backyard without increasing the overall budget.

4. Find a Home for the Ugly Stuff Before You Design All the Pretty Stuff

Pool equipment isn't going to make anyone's backyard inspiration board, but it still needs somewhere to live.

So do trash cans, hoses, floats, chemicals, cleaning equipment, pool toys, cushions, towels and approximately 700 pool noodles your children will apparently acquire on their own.

Planning for those things early matters because the practical parts of a backyard compete for the same space as the fun ones. Pool equipment needs adequate access for maintenance and shouldn't be squeezed into a tiny enclosure just because nobody wants to see it. At the same time, you probably don't want to hear the equipment humming beside the outdoor dining table or stare at it from your kitchen window every morning.

Think through equipment placement, storage, hose bibs, electrical outlets, trash access and service routes while you're laying out the backyard. Screening and landscaping can then be designed around those necessities instead of becoming emergency fixes afterward. The same goes for storage. A thoughtfully placed cabinet, storage bench, small structure or dedicated pool-storage area can keep everyday necessities convenient without turning the patio into permanent parking for floats and cleaning supplies.

These aren't glamorous decisions, but they're the kind you'll appreciate every single weekend once you start using the space.

5. Make One Master Plan—Even If You're Building the Backyard Over Five Years

This may be the single most important money-saving decision on the list.

A master plan does not mean you need to build the dream pool, outdoor kitchen, pavilion, fireplace, landscaping, lighting and every other feature at the same time. It simply means you know roughly where all of those things would go if you eventually decide to add them.

That one step can prevent a surprising number of expensive problems. You don't want today's pool sitting in the best location for the pavilion you've always wanted. You don't want a beautiful retaining wall blocking future construction access. You don't want to install mature landscaping directly over the route a utility line will need to take in two years. You certainly don't want to discover that the patio you finished last summer ends four feet short of where the outdoor kitchen needs to begin.

A master plan lets each phase prepare for the next. Maybe you build the pool and patio first, add landscaping and lighting the following year, and tackle the outdoor kitchen later. The backyard can evolve with your budget while still looking and functioning like one thoughtfully designed space when it's complete.

It also gives you something valuable when you're deciding where to spend money now. You can distinguish between a feature that's expensive because you want it and infrastructure that's worth doing early because changing it later will cost substantially more.

Sometimes Saving Money Means Spending a Little More at the Beginning

This is the part that's easy to misunderstand. Smart planning doesn't necessarily make the first invoice smaller.

Running an extra conduit costs money. Preparing a gas line for a future fire feature costs money. Fixing drainage correctly costs money. Making the patio slightly larger where you know a dining table will eventually sit costs money.

The savings come from doing those things once.

There is very little financial benefit in saving $500 today if it creates a $3,000 problem two years from now. That's why, when we're looking at a backyard plan, we're interested in more than what a homeowner wants to build today. We want to know what they might want tomorrow.

At Cool Breeze Pools, we're able to look at pools, hardscapes, landscaping, site preparation and outdoor living as pieces of the same property. Even when a project will happen in stages, we can think about how those stages eventually need to work together.

So before you start cutting things from the budget, ask one question first:

What would be expensive to change later?

Get those decisions right now. The pretty stuff can always come next.