It all started about a year ago when I decided that we absolutely needed a stock tank pool! Fun, right!? With nowhere to put it, my husband and I went down the rabbit hole of eventually building a new patio for solely the purpose of housing this pool and a bonus of finally finding a purpose for our unused side yard. The patio and retaining wall was recently finished (all thanks to my wonderful husband who did this all himself by hand…sometimes with a headlamp at night). To keep the project reasonably priced we went with a basic grey concrete patio tile from Lowe’s. I think the patio looked totally fine, but I thought it would be interesting to do DIY painted patio pavers to make it look like we had tiled our patio.
Where we live it gets really hot (over 100) and really cold (freezing) so ceramic tile outside is not practical and would have been way too costly. Paint was a great option to make this look like we put in expensive tiles for way less!
Let me show you how I created these DIY painted patio pavers!
For reference, our lower patio is 15×10 tiles and the upper patio is 14×10 tiles.
Disclaimer: Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase through those links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting me.
Supplies
- Concrete Tiles (There are way more supplies needed for the actual patio, but I wanted you to know which tiles we went with)
- Benjamin Moore Super White (I used 4 gallons of the Valspar Satin Clear Base Porch and Patio Floor Paint in the Super White color)
- Farrow and Ball Lulworth Blue (I used 1 gallon of Ace Hardware’s Royal line in Exterior Flat)
- Cardboard
- Pencil
- String
- Scissors
- Mini paint roller and mini tray
- Brushes used for the upper patio (Larger, Detail)
Step 1
Paint the entire patio white. We did two coats. It was soaking it up so we ended up using almost 4 gallons of paint. Note: since this patio is fairly new we did not have to do any major cleaning. We just blew off some dust/debries and went for it. If yours is really dirty you may have to use a degreaser/power wash it.
Step 2
After hours and hours of mulling over what to do with this patio, I decided to go with a simple arch shape laid out in a floral pattern. I used canva.com to draw out every square of my patio and play with the design. Below was my plan, but when I was painting I decided to continue the pattern from the first patio to the second instead of starting it over (like below).
Step 3
Make your arch template. I decided to used thick cardboard.
Take the cardboard outside and cut it to match one of your square tiles.
Tape a string down to one corner and tie a pencil to the end. Pulling tightly, trace the pencil from one corner to the other. Cut it out. That is it for the template! Not too bad.
Step 4
Print out your canva layout and bring it outside with you. Trace around your cardboard with pencil on all of the tiles that need the arch.
Step 5
Paint! I painted everything freehand. I don’t think tape would have worked well since this was a very uneven and bumpy surface. For the lower ‘mostly blue’ patio, I used a mini roller for the entire thing. I tried to keep the paint on the top of the tile (not the sloping edges), leaving the white grout lines. I did two coats on this patio.
For the upper patio, I decided to somewhat invert the colors. To paint the blue, I used two small brushes. I painted into the grout lines on this patio. This took me around 4 hours to do just one coat. I never went back for a second coat, I was too exhausted but it looks great.
Keep baby wipes on hand for any mistakes. You might have to go back the next day and paint white over any major blue mistakes, I did!
The plan is to install our stock tank this week so I cannot wait to show you what it looks like! Be sure to also come back for the full patio reveal!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Please let me know if you have any questions.
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