If you need to build a concrete patio, deck, driveway or pool surround, you might want to have it made by a contractor who can create decorative concrete structures. Here are two reasons why.

Decorative concrete can allow you to add beauty to your property without using up space

One of the challenges of making your property's exterior beautiful is that most forms of outdoor décor, such as potted plants, flower bushes or garden ornaments, take up room and thus reduce the amount of free space available for other important things, such as your patio furniture, your vehicles, etc.

If your property exterior isn't very large and this is an issue that you're currently trying to resolve, using decorative concrete to create the outdoor structures you need could be the solution. This is because designing the floor of, for example, your deck or driveway with decorative concrete will introduce some beautiful patterns into these sections of the property, but will not consume any storage space.

This then gives you the freedom to fill these areas with larger versions of the essential items you need to keep in them, as you won't need to leave room for pretty but space-consuming decorative objects. For example, after using decorative concrete to create your patio, you could then place an eight-seater outdoor patio sofa in this area, instead of a six-seater one, because you won't need to leave space for things like planter pots or ornaments.

It's a low-maintenance form of exterior décor

The other reason to have the contractor make your concrete structure with this decorative form of concrete is that it's an extremely low-maintenance type of exterior décor. For example, any potted plants you use to decorate a plain concrete patio would need to be regularly watered and fertilised and would need to be lugged indoors on stormy days to prevent the pots from getting blown over and broken. Similarly, items like garden ornaments need to be dusted regularly and any outdoor lamps need to have their bulbs periodically replaced. Collectively, these tasks can be time-consuming.

In contrast, a decorative concrete patio doesn't require any more maintenance than its plain counterpart (i.e. to be swept occasionally and resealed every few years) and so will not add to your exterior property maintenance to-do list in the way that other decorative items could. This could be very useful if your busy schedule doesn't allow you to do much property maintenance.